Consoles Get Steamed, Black Ops AI Refunds, and Krafton's Voluntary Layoffs | Games For Breakfast

[Applause] [Music] Good morning, MATT.
AH, GOOD MORNING, WILL.
GOOD MORNING TO ALL OF YOU.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WHERE WE TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK'S gaming and tech news. But also, we're living in a box. We're living in a gabin box. We are living in a box. That's right. Today we are going to talk about the classic '8s tune uh Living in a Box. Um
yeah, that's that's that's yeah, that's what we're talking about.
Um no, uh today Good morning. Hello. Hi. Welcome. Um this episode I think will be one of the more fun ones.
I agree.
Will, do you agree?
Do you concur? I concur.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Oh boy. Um, how how you doing, Will? How was how was how was the weekend? How was life?
It was good. I got to go to the Avatar

pre-release. Very excited about that. Um, meanwhile, the the Final Fantasy crew continues to to do all of the things and get prepped for our upcoming patch, uh, which we're very excited about. So,
lots lots of good things. I uh I ended up going last night over and hanging out with um Adam Chase of Jetlag fame, Chandler, Dean, and Amy uh of uh of Mueller of um the Getaway. Well, Amy of the Getaway, and then Amy and Chandler of Abolish Everything fame. And you know what we did? We played Mario Party Jamberee. Now, I have not played a mainstream Mario Party game since probably the N64 because I had heard that the Wii was good, right? And then it kind of went
it. Okay. So, like when they introduced the motion controls, it got kind of interesting because you could do like weird motion control like mini games, which is cool and fun.
Uh I think I had a blast with that game. I was like now I'm now I'm jonesing to

actually play that game some more. As long as you understand that the real winner is the person who humiliates their opponents at the mini games the most because the board game portion is complete RNG.
It's RNG but I but the new Did you play the one for the Switch?
I did not.
I am I'm impressed with both the mechanical differences of the actual boards and the many ways it because it is RNG but there's there's so many ways to catch up. It's like it's almost all catch-up mechanics all the way down. And I actually really I never did it feel it had that really good emotional curve of like always feeling like you're screwed, but then wait a minute, if this happens, like there's a really good way like you can pop back up. So, I enjoyed it very much. Um, no, that was my weekend. It was very good. Uh, real quick before we dive into the uh the the Gabe Cube, as it was, has been dubbed on the internet

and all the things that Steam is is uh thinking about releasing in 2026. Will, could you pull up the place for people to find us and talk to us and tell us things? You can obviously say hello right now if you're here live and you can leave a comment if you're on YouTube after the fact or if you're on Nebula, you can uh message us or on any of the other platforms really on the Blue Sky Machine. That is where you can live and talk to us about all the things we talk about on this show or uh other random stuff. Um we will definitely answer the stuff about the show. Other random stuff, your experiences may vary.
That's right.
Um but in the last little bit of other random stuff, if you are going to PAX unplugged, my dear friends, I will be on uh Jasmine that bronze girl's um pen dragon one hour oneshot uh with waterway and a few other folks. Uh, I believe it's at 700 p.m. on Friday in the Mo Man Theater. If you're going to be in Philly, please come see that show and say hi. Moth Man. Uh, it is uh I'm very very excited about it because Jasmine and I were talking about this uh oneshot

and essentially it is going to be an actual oneshot, an actual an actual actual play, but that the goal is to design it for you trying to get your like teaching you how to get your friends into a new tabletop RPG you want to play. So, Jasmine loves Pen Dragon. None of us have played Pen Dragon, so we're going to be doing like an educational oneshot. It's going to be both things. It is an experiment. It is wacky. We have the theater from 7 to 8. And actually, Will, I need to talk to you about this. Uh I I think it's going to be on mainstream packs if you want to if people are around to to watch it, if people are available.
I uh
Yeah,
I may not be around to light that beacon, Matt.
If you're not, if you're not,
yeah,
we'll figure something out.
Yeah. Uh, which brings us, by the way, to an important scheduling announcement, which is as a direct result of Matt's paxing and my, uh, partner being in town to go see Hades Town, there will be no stream next Monday. No stream next

Monday. Stream after Thanksgiving, yes. Stream next Monday, no. I think we mention we mentioned that in the pre-show, but I don't think we mentioned that after we started,
of course.
But my brain is mush.
We got it. Well, also, hey, look, at least Gab's here, right? Gab's here and we so we can just chat and if we have any questions, Gab's obviously in the audience, so when we do our first story, we can really get into the nitty-gritty of all this.
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, which I think without any further ado, we should we should just jump into uh
into into the ambush.
So, this happened,
right?
Wait, hold on. THIS JUST IN. IT'S NOT GABE. AH, you know, I have a feeling this is going to be a roller coaster. I have a feeling that's exactly what Gabe would say. We
We've been done a bamboozle. Gabe doesn't bother with us. He's busy on his $500 million mega yacht.
Wait, hold on. Hold on. Will, what do you think he's watching on that $500

million mega yacht?
Dota?
No,
he's watching Dota.
No, he's here.
He's watching Dota in Russian. He's paid someone to live translate Russian Dota because that's where most Dota gets played is in Russia.
This just in. Uh Gabe moved over to where wherever Yachtway it was and now is is typing from their computer or phone or tablet.
I I I I like this. We are all Gabe on this blessed day.
Yeah, Bob. That's fair.
You know, it's true.
I have a feeling throughout this day Gab's going to be jumping around to every person's computer. No, I
physically not hacking in or anything like that. Like showing up at the house, dropping off a Steam Deck and then being like, "Can I just Thank you." Okay.
Right. Yeah. I am gay. Right. Okay. Great. Excellent. Yeah, we're all on the same page. So, um, we got a, uh, a bit of a unexpected announcement, like thunder in a clear sky, um, of not one,

not two, but three new pieces of Valve hardware.
Let's go. which any one of these alone would be a thing to talk about, but the fact that Valve was like, "Hey,
2026, it's the year of Steam hardware, get ready,"
is pretty big, I would say, especially with Microsoft screwing up so bad recently with their everything with the
Let's be kind with Microsoft making a series of choices That's true. And now they have to live with the consequences of those choices, which is that there's no reason to buy an Xbox ever when you could buy a Steam machine. That's the consequence of their choices, right?
I wonder, you know what's interesting? Okay, before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's let's tinfoil hat someish real quick. All right. Do you think that in the back channels

of these large video game companies, this was a known thing coming down the pipe and Microsoft had to choose whether to actively combat it or get out of the way? I think they might have seen the writing on the wall and decided to get the hell out of the way because they can't like Okay, so I think we all agree that Microsoft was in the worst position of the big three, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo when it came to consoles specifically, right? Microsoft has had the game pass and like its efficacy is up for debate right now, especially with them doubling the price to get day one releases. And that's been a hotly debated topic that we don't need to get too far into. But I will say that it's not out of the question that Steam could eat their lunch, right? Because Steam has the same thing. Steam has a PC library that you can put on the on the um

on a console, right?
Yeah. Also, Bane, I didn't even think of this. Bane,
I wouldn't be surprised that Valve timed these to release with the ending of Windows 10 and people needed to upgrade. Yeah,
it's funny in the IGN interview, which all the stuff, there's a lot of stuff about this in the show notes, and again, we promise we will be talking about the hardware, but in the IGM interview, they do mention how they were, and they say it really nicely and kindly, but uh it is a bit makavelian if you think about it. They're like, well, we, you know, because we get report data of like everyone's PCs that like are running the games to try to figure out how to make the games run better. So, we knew that it was about time for they said something along the lines of like they they're like like we we're pitching this towards people who have like older hardware, which means they must know the numbers of people that are in like this probably is the absolute right time because they have all that data.
There's a large number of very popular games which have settings that let them

run on a potato, right? um on on Steam specifically. So, we're going to ignore things like League, right, which has its own thing, but like
Dota, um CS:GO, um what what was the other one that I was thinking of? Uh uh Warframe, right? If you get it through Steam, a lot of freetoplay games have potato specs, right? Because you need those people to be engaged with something,
right? So, yeah. I think this is an incredibly smart time to do this. I I imagine Microsoft kind of knew the the the writing on the wall uh when they left it. The interesting bit though, I wonder I just from a timeline perspective, I wonder when the because what was the last big thing? Was it was Activision Blizzard King the last huge Microsoft acquisition or was there one other that I'm just blanking on because they happen every other Tuesday?

I think that was the last big one. Like I wonder like how long because all of obviously things like um the Steam Machine and all of these things has to be cooking for a while, right? I wonder like when at what point that acquisition versus the knowledge of this came across Xbox's desk because like doesn't it seem like and again this is this is a layman's situation. I am not any insider information about any of these companies, but doesn't it seem like so far that purchase isn't really paying off?
Like,
well,
not to say that they're not making profit from it.
Yes. Because a reminder that Blizzard has World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft just makes money. like not not 40 whatever billion or like whatever that number is like
that's a okay so but one of the problems that we run into with corporate

acquisitions lately is that it's all monopoly money none of it's a real number right like all of the the billions of dollars of like debt and like you know stock options and I'll give you a super yacht if you give me your Manhattan penthouse apartment and like what
I don't know if it goes like that but I get where you're [Laughter] You want to bet me that I can't find a single thing where somebody swapped a piece of property or a super yacht as part of a deal, right? Like the the
super yachts, the second you you you boat it off the lot, it loses like $3 million,
right? But these people don't care because they could probably light $3 million to start the super yacht, right? Um, I do think that like those are kind of madeup numbers versus like the sort of real numbers which feel like operating costs, right? Because like the the the actual purchase price much like the purchase price to buy a h, right? So like think about it like buying a house, right? Yes, it's a lot of money, but the

real impact on your life is not the uh lumpsum total, it's the mortgage,
right? At least in the US, the other
upkeep,
right? Right.
And taxes.
Uhhuh. Yep. Very familiar with all those. Right. But like the the the the actual impact is not the full value. It's the monthlies, right? In the same way that while yes, it is true that they spent $40 billion, right? The way that it comes out is in the monthlies. And I feel like Blizzard's doing a pretty good job, but I can't speak to King or Activision uh because I don't follow them at all.
Yeah. Uharo says, "Not to be rude, but just as someone who just did a complete new build PC back in January to avoid the themeiffs, the uh I personally do not care about the Steam machine. Not saying it's a bad thing, just don't care for it personally." So, this is interesting. Um I think that's totally valid. Obvious obviously PCs aren't going away, right? Um there is some

we're going to get into sort of the the why this is still positioned to be in a very interesting uh space because there will always be people like Icaro and Will and myself who like having like a beast of a machine to do multiple things that we need them to do. I need it for uh editing, light streaming, and because I have something that's strong enough for that, I can game pretty hard on it. So, my graphics card is kind of getting a little bit out of date, I'd say, at this point. Um, will you you just uh rebuilt your machine what, a year and a half ago? A year ago? What was it?
Uh, which one? So,
the the the gaming machine was uh is almost two, I think, at this point. And the stream PC is almost one.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, Mle. If only this is true. If only this is true. Uh, it won't be maybe it will be
it won't be HalfLife 3. It will be

Halfife something else.
Yeah.
Um, but we'll go back and forth. Yeah.
Um,
so uh yeah, I I think that this, by the way, is the other is the other point, right? Because I'm in this camp, right? Pixel Deity says, "Someone with a dedicated gaming PC, I want that Steam machine. I abort connecting my PC to TV, and this is actually a nice solution." And we'll talk about that in a second. But I do want to point out that there is another side to that.
Yeah. And I I have a I have an active right now user case thing with hardware that I have in my house that this will do better and I am excited for it. Um but but by all means I will I think it's a safe bet and and Brad Janet chat uh folks on Nebula Rocky I think
it's fair to say Will that you and I are relatively excited about this. We think it's an overall good thing. So, we're going to be overly positive. I also do appreciate when folks in chat have something like, "Ah, but what about this thing?" Like, I I I want the conversation to keep going. So, just

because Will and I are a little bit excite about this, uh, that shouldn't stop you from uh having polite dissension of anything that you find. We we welcome that. That's something that's very interesting to us.
Yeah. Right. 100%. This is not perfect, right? It
No. While we make jokes about Gabin being the savior of uh PC gaming, that's not entirely true. Uh and uh Steam is still a company that makes money. So, we should expect them to while we anticipate a degree of benevolence that is not common in the industry from Steam. There will still be problems with this. Um and we should be honest about like when they come out, right?
Um
so where do we want to start? We want to start with the box. What's the box? the
All right. So, there's a box. So, this is the Steam Machine. Here's the most important thing. Um,
they cut an Xbox Series X in half.
It's a PC.
Yeah,

that's the really important part. Um, and and we've talked about how consoles are just fancy PCs with specific operating systems. Valve is 100% on board with, yeah, this is a PC and the OS it comes preloaded with is designed to do all the things you wanted to do on your TV because that's what we're selling the product for, but they're very clear that this is a PC and that there is nothing to stop you from putting a different operating system or using it for a different thing on it because they they're big fans of that. Also, they've already shown the internals. I cannot stress enough how big a deal that is. They've already shown the internals, and if it's anything like the Steam Deck, they will have tearown diagrams so you can, and I know this is a radical concept in 2025, fix it yourself and replace parts if you want to.

Yeah.
Wild, I know. Yep. So, like
uh
question one actually from Pixie and Pink. Uh I was actually wondering this too. If you'll have to always have it connect to Steam directly in order to play games on it or would you or could you just like will it run exactly I imagine it'll run like your P like you don't need your as long as you have the stuff downloaded on your PC. You don't need to be connected to Steam to play single player games.
Correct. You could play in offline mode and I imagine that is the case here as well.
But Pixie brings up a sort of interesting side secondary side secondary thing. What god it's the morning and this coffee is not kicking in. Um, the other interesting element here is I imagine since this is a PC, they're not going to be charging for like Steam Link or whatever like the PlayStation uh, you know, Plus or uh, Xbox Live or Nintendo online that we all that interact with those um, those shops and those services have to. this is something that you'll actually depending

on the price point of what this thing costs save money in the long run especially if you can replace the parts yourself.
Yeah, I I think that that is uh that is very true. There is some interesting stuff that we don't have full um we don't have all of the information on this yet. So, I don't want to get too deep into like specs, but um they have said uh that it will run 4K 60fps with FSR and there is a the what they have said on their product page is that a discrete semi-custom AMD desktop class CPU and GPU.
Mhm. Um, and I think that that's actually really big. Uh, yeah, that that they're being open about like, hey, this is a custom thing. It's not going to directly um, translate.
And that also brings up sort of two sort of things. And apologies if you can hear my dog llo in the background. Jamie just went downstairs and he's very upset about it. Um, the the interesting thing

here is this is not selling itself as the most powerful console on the block, even though it's going to be relatively up there just based on being the newest console on the block. Um, that's just how it will go. and then something else will come out that'll be more specific and whatever that you know tale is as old as time but uh Lunar sorry so it can run Doom um but like I also don't think that the use case for this is that it should be the most powerful machine in your house like I there's there's multiple use cases in my opinion first and foremost you if you've been someone who is who's whose PC is sort of uh languishing and you uh need a new system, this could function as that. Um, if you're if you have a gaming PC and it's, you know, even like a beefed

up one, but you don't have it hooked up directly to your television in your living room or don't have the the connections or the the wireless video systems to do that and you want to play on your couch. Maybe you don't want to, but I often do. I often I would love if I could play I bought Night Rain twice. I have it on my PlayStation and I have it on PC. I play it more on PC, but I sometimes just want to vibe out and just lean back and just have the controller and not deal with anything else. Um, again, that's a different price point doing that than doing something like this. But if it was ubiquitous and not just a single game that like other than portability, which Steam seems to have a bit of a good uh uh grasp on that as well, I don't know if I would buy something, you know, that wasn't exclusive to another console for a specific reason, like a Nintendo game that could go on the Switch and be portable or a or a Wolverine that's

going to be exclusive on PlayStation for a couple years. I have prepared a list of other use cases that we might not be considering by the way. Okay, so Matts is definitely a good one. I appreciate Matt's like I am mostly like a chair gamer, but sometimes I want to play somewhere else that's not my chair, right? Other use cases. one streamers, very small market, but streamers are going to love this because if you've ever wanted to move to a second PC setup, this is it,
right? This makes it way easier cuz you just like it's a PC and it runs all your Steam games. Great. Problem solved. Plug it into a second PC like you'd plug in a console and now you can stream uh higher quality games because you don't need to have everything running on one PC. Great. Awesome. Excellent. Next use case. High school kids first gaming PC

or Sure.
kids first gaming PC, right?
There's multiple reasons for that too. Price point and modularity and repairability. Like you kind of
Yeah. There's not like this is actually very interesting on that point will because like when I was coming up in building computers there was a multitude of different things you could do of course but like it was not as wide as now like the the stuff you could get your hands on and build with. This is a really great starter thing that is not terribly complicated, that's internals are probably very well like um organized in its design that you'll be like it would be a great starting point to learn how to even do that.
Yeah. Um uh someone asked about by the way someone uh these are all really good questions. Uh,
I know you chat's blazing by on both

Twitch and and YouTube, so we're trying to keep up.
This is great. Um, any thoughts on the on the bas on Arch Linux? Games like Fortnite and COD don't run on Linux. I will be absolutely shocked if they don't get a carve out like and I think that the Okay, so let's back up a step. The reason that those things don't work on Linux isn't that they couldn't work on Linux. it's that the anti-che software that goes with them doesn't currently work on Linux because they're um because generally speaking it's kernel level. That's not we're we don't need to get into specifics. There is a possibility that that uh status quo in the industry changes. Um there has been discussion that Microsoft may be cracking down on that. Also, Valve isn't we'll talk about this in a bit. Valve doesn't care about Call of Duty right now. Like, they don't really care about Call of Duty.
I'll go I'll go a step further. Valve doesn't care about Fortnite right now.

I also agree with that. So, like, yes, those things might not run. Those um the developers of those games could make carveouts specifically for this if they wanted to appeal to this audience. Or they may need to remove the tech that makes it incompatible with Linux if it also becomes incompatible with Windows, which is a possibility. that is uh has been discussed as being on the horizon. So like I don't
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways it could go. Like I like if anything, and again, this is not diminishing the the size and/or power of Epic's Fortnite in any way, shape, or form, but like in in the power dynamic between Valve and Epic at this point, in again short-term financials, not long-term strategy, Epic would benefit more from Fortnite being on Steam at this point than Steam would benefit from Fortnite being on on Steam. Yes.
Like, and again, it wouldn't hurt him,

but like they don't they don't need it. And again, I you know what? I just I feel like this is a very important time to say this. It's good that they don't really need each other.
Yeah.
Like I want I don't want everything to be one thing. I I have been a proponent even though I don't look even though I don't use it as much. Uh I am glad the Epic Store exists. We need we need other things. We need things that are not just whatever. And again, just because Valve and Steam have been a good company, companies are like they can change over time, especially over the course of like human generations, not console generations. So, like I love what Steam and Valve is right now, and they're not perfect either, but like I think it's a good paragon of a of a company that makes a a a gobsmacking amount of money
and doesn't um actively hurt a lot of people,
right?
Um but that can also change. So if we

are if we it's always just as we're as we're just praising this machine and what they're doing. I also want to just always take a step back every 10 minutes or so and be like this is as of this moment it always can change. No uh companies are not um what's the word I'm looking for?
Monoliths.
Not monoliths. Um like uh consistent paragonss of virtue andor otherwise I guess would be the thing.
Yeah. Right. Social what happens when Gabe retires hopefully. And it seems like again because the way the company is run there's probably a structure in place to sort of keep like things in mind. But again that can be eroded that can be whatever.
Yep.
Uh there's no there's another option and this is be totally within everyone's rights. What if Gabe changes his mind? like, you know, like we're all fallible. So, anyway, sorry. We'll get back to the the fun hardware things. I just wanted to kind of say that as an outlier.

Yeah. Um, so we should probably uh just bring up like, by the way, we've seen a bunch of comments about this, so I'm just going to go to our next slide real quick to answer everyone's everyone's question.
Yeah, of course there's going to be a companion cube skin.
Of course there is.
Of course there is. There's already plans for skins for companion cubes and Minecraft blocks and like duh. So like if anyone's like, "Oh my god, I can't believe they're not." Yeah, of course they're making a companion cube skin. Just chill your jets. It's fine. Okay, great. Excellent. Um I just wanted to address that and like change the image, but like I I think that the
if I get the machine, I'll get this I'll get this sketch,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Um, and I think here's the other thing that I think is really important. I don't think that Valve wants to manufacture a case where everyone feels

like they need this. Oh, because Okay. Well, yeah. the the the spacing of how they're handling their hardware division has been ramping up at, to be perfectly honest, conservative timelines for the amount of money they make. And that's good because they're not rushing things.
Yeah.
If you look at like this uh the hardware that they've sort of uh come out with being the the first what was the first one? The controller.
Is that the f the first piece of Steam hardware? Their original first piece of Steam hardware was, I believe, the controller. And then they did the Steam Link,
which is like a essentially a Wi-Fi dongle, so you can stream off your gaming PC to your TV, which works.
It's like an Nvidia Shield, right?
Right.
And then uh obviously this the Steam Deck, which has uh changed the space and how like between that and the Switch, portable gaming is now not the same. Um, and now this and companies that have made less money have moved faster in

these in these areas to to manufacture. And to Will's point, I yeah, I do think that they don't want initially that everybody in the planet to want one of these because they won't be able they probably aren't gearing up to make that. Um, maybe we're wrong there, but that feels correct.
Yep. Uh,
Raphael, it better. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. The index.
Oh, yeah. And then their VR. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, America.
The index was kind of a non-starter for a lot of people because of price point relative to other things in the space. Here's the other interesting thing.
And it hit it. Sorry, one last thing. Well, and it hit on the wrong tech time. It was right when uh external sensors were kind of going out of style for VR headsets and you still needed either a full room or like setting up things every time where now every headset that is again VR is not huge but it's like all the sensors are on the headset
right so here's the other thing it's not because it's its own thing it's

not going to be directly price comparable to a lot of other things right it's not going to be directly price comparable to a PS5 or to what remaining Xboxes exist or to a Switch right? Because it is its own thing. Um, so people are saying that they're guessing it's going to be in the $800,000 range, which is a lot. Like, we're not going to pretend like that's not a lot.
It's not. That's what the Pro goes for now, isn't it?
With the with the disc drive and everything,
probably somewhere in that range. Um, the uh I think the important thing to realize is that they're not doing the thing where they um someone also mentioned this earlier. I don't think they're going to loss lead this as in they're not going to take a loss on this to try and get people to buy it because they don't need you to buy this. Right? It's not like Nintendo, right? If Nintendo doesn't sell consoles, Nintendo doesn't sell games,
right? But and Nintendo notoriously doesn't lost lead. They sell it more or less at cost.
Steam doesn't need to sell hardware. like it it doesn't

this is something they have they have enough money to do and there's passionate people in it so they're doing it
right
that that to me will is actually one of the main reasons I'm excited for all their stuff
yeah because they don't they're not ma they're not in the business of manufacturing need they also don't need to spend money to market this because they've got the best marketing for this they could possibly have which is they just put an advertisement on the homepage of Steam that says, "Hey, do you want to buy a computer from us?
Buy kids love computer.
You want to buy puda? All right, great.
Computer going slow. We know it's going slow. We could see all your information,
right? We could you can buy this inside of Steam to run more Steam. You can literally download more RAM." Like, that's what it is, right? So, I feel like their goals and the way that they're going about it, their price point, their marketing strategy are all

going to be in a very different niche.
Sure.
Though ultimately, the function of the cube will be in a similar place to many consoles. I do think it's going to be marketed, sold, priced, approached differently because it's not a because it's explicitly a PC that happens to run all your Steam games.
Yeah.
Right. as a from a design approach. Um, also someone's asking about ventilation on this thing. The holes are on the back.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a great Again, it looks like an Xbox Series X cut in half and turned 90°.
Um, also also important to realize, by the way, in case uh you you you're curious at all about this. This thing is like more than 50% heat sink by volume. Like there's there are pictures of a tear down. I think at the IG.
I'm wondering how hot it is to touch though.
Don't If you want to lick it
now Brad's never going to stop talking about licking the cube.

Yeah.
Why have you done?
In my day it was called gleaming. But yeah, uh this is this is you never know.
Yeah,
there it is.
Um
anyone want to fry some eggs?
Yeah. Uh all right. Uh do we have any other thoughts specifically on the cube
kind of? We got into use case. We got into what it's doing. There is a picture if you're if you're curious about how big it is. By the way, it's about 6 in to a side. There is a banana for scale on the the Steam sale page.
We we don't normally do um uh like actual product links in the show notes. I feel like putting the store.steamower.com steamowered.com is actually worth it in the show notes if people are interested because I'm looking at essentially like there's so they they've done such a great job of showcasing all the different things they want this to do. Like there's there's a gif about the LED strip and how the different things like it's basically the

same cube in different places with different plates and different things and the different ways you can set it up. Um, someone also did mention, and I think this is uh really good. I think Brett's got a really good point here. Um, it's tiny and you can put it like flipping anywhere.
Yeah.
Right. Which is nice compared to like the vertical size of the PS5 and the Xbox, which I know can get awkward for some setups.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They also did banana for scale. Also, they have a little gift of all their hardware marching, and it was almost going to be the thumbnail, and it's so adorable. Um, that's just worth the trip. All right, we can move on to the controller. The controller is the thing I
I had the headset next.
Oh, the headset next.
Oh, no. We have the controller next. I had it backwards in the notes from the thing. It's fine. It's fine. Fine.
So, will did you use the OG?
Yes.
Valve controller. You liked it, right?
I did. Um, uh, if I had had a mind, I could have pulled it out, but the important thing to know is that instead of traditional thumb sticks, they had

circular trackpads, which could also be depressed. Um, and I thought that that was a pretty good setup. My I I was a little hesitant about this until I saw people holding it.
It looks uncomfortable.
It It does.
The big thing to know is that the the grips on the sides are rather are like very ergonomically done. And you don't actually need the space between the grips. Like it's done on most controllers, but you don't actually need there to be space there. Um, so having the dual those are trackpads.
Yeah.
Right. So just to be clear, those are not just big square buttons. Those are trackpads. Also, the fact that there are many grip buttons on the back. It actually has L and R one through five. So it's got bumper, trigger, click, right? Bumper, trigger, stick, click. Those are the L's. And then two rear triggers on each side. that.

So, there's a lot of buttons.
So, a lot of buttons. Um, and the thumb pads. This is really designed because there's there's sort of an interesting problem. All right. Which is, and I'm willing to bet I will bet money, not a lot of money, but I'll bet money that one of the reasons that they're doing this is that there are two games in particular that lots of people want to play on a controller that are almost impossible to play on a controller. And I'm willing to bet that these two games have some some impact on this. One of them is Dota 2. Playing Dota 2 on a controller is not a great idea. And it's probably not a great idea here, but they might be working on it.
And the other one is Civilization. Civ is very difficult to play on a controller. And I think that this might get closer with the touchpads. Um, but the Civ is kind of like I would say the litmus test for like this isn't a thing that you probably play on a controller and if you want it to if you want to

play it on a controller, getting it to work well,
right,
is sort of like a high bar to meet and that you could probably aim for as a PC game that you want to play on a couch. See if it's a game I could totally see playing on a couch for because it's a very long game,
right?
But you want you need the interface, right? Unless you're doing like the keyboard mouse on your lap thing, which is like at that point. Is that comfy? Maybe. I don't know.
Yeah. So, let's talk a little bit. So, the the shape of it is going to have to be a sort of feel to believe. Again, I still feel like at least at this point, this is the best controller ever made. I think this is the for for me, pound-for-pound, literally uh perfect. Um, again, I am a Sony pony, so take my my my uh praise with a grain of uh PlayStation, but um I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on one of these things. I was not a big fan of the original Steam controller. I tried getting into it and sort of learning the slide the slide uh the

thumb slides uh and I just couldn't.
I liked it.
Um
actually, I still have mine somewhere.
Mine somewhere. I Yeah, I think No, didn't you didn't yours break? And then I I was going to give you mine. That was ages ago.
I don't I don't remember. Maybe.
Whatever.
I I moved to I moved to a uh
I started using the Switch controller for everything just because it's what I had.
The Pro Controller on the PC is good.
Yeah. The the the Pro Controller also has a bigger has a chunkier lower profile, right, than like
it feels that way. So,
yeah. I I think I think I I also think and this is so important. You can like one without the other. Right. This is It's also good to have another option. Yeah.
Right.
Also, I bet you cuz this is a PC and it's running Steam, you can use any controller you want.
Yep. The the big difference here is that the Steam button is a

uh pull up the Steam menu. though. I'm willing to bet that you can get
Oh, sweet summer child. You don't think that's going to be remapped right here?
Right. I I'm willing to bet that it will be, but I'm not going to promise that because like this is a specific functionality. I'm willing to bet that a home button on any controller will do the same thing.
Yeah, I do really like um the gyro enabled grips, which is something that I wish the Nintendo controllers had uh even on the Switch or something else. Uh it basically if you're holding tightly or or or have enough of pressure I guess on the um on the backs of the controller, you can see it on the website. That's when it will enable gyro. Like it's you can map it like any sort of button like on or off. So like that way if you're playing something and you're you're one of those people that try to drive with your hands but you don't want gyro on,
that's great.
Um and then the last thing that I know multiple people have said that they were very very excited about was the controller puck. Will, are you familiar with this?
Yeah, it's a um charging dock

essentially on the back.
Yeah.
That you can just click it onto which
now the one confusing thing and maybe someone can answer me for this. It's great because like it's the it's the wireless thing to make the controller wireless, but also is there nothing in the console that just lets the controller link wirelessly to the console?
It's probably Bluetooth.
It should be, right? Then why do you need this? I guess this is my I'm trying to find what I'm missing here because like if it's Bluetooth, this is just a magnetic chargy thing.
Yeah,
which is fine. I have a magnetic chargy thing for my PlayStation controllers, but like I feel like people were acting like this is a little more revolutionary and I'm trying to figure out what what
needing to plug in your controller in order to be able to grab it and keep playing.
I have that now like uh but like you know like
on PC we generally don't. Oh yeah,
right. That's the big thing, right?
Oh, dramatic variation of NC uh NFC. So So it's it's using its own

it's lower latency than Bluetooth. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's using its own thing to do it. And I imagine it will not interfere with some of the other things we were going to talk about later uh in this episode.
Yeah.
And it can connect up to four control. Thank you everybody. Thank you. I knew there was something. I just couldn't like on I I I a lot of my information I got from the IGN article and literally Steam's page and I couldn't exactly figure out at uh at a quick bit what that is.
Yeah.
Um but that's neat.
I I'm I'm I will I'm a maybe on the machine. I'm a definite yes on this controller.
Yeah,
I will be get I will be getting this controller because I really like what it's doing. And oftent times this is a very unique thing. Um, I have a digital KVM that lets me control my uh Steam machine and my um or my not my Steam machine, my gaming PC and my streaming rig at the same

time. Sometimes games don't play nice with that digital KVM. So, I need to disconnect the keyboard while I'm using a controller so I can do things on the stream PC. And this solves a unique problem that I specifically have. So, I will admit that like I have a specific use case in mind which is non-standard. That being said, I'm very excited for this, right? I think I think it'll be very good. Also, also also uh for the 14 players,
heyo,
14 with like the the dual trackpads for like all the other camera control and movement and like menuing and stuff. Yes, please. If 14 support for this is going to be great or and for other MMOs, I think. Uh,
we were talking about WoW coming to console.
They said no, but Valve might say tough. We're making it work on this Steam machine anyway.
So funny.
Um, okay, cool. Uh,
and then the thing that I think I'm the

most excited about, yeah, to be honest,
uh, is the headset.
Um, I am psyched for the Steam Frame. I like the specs. Uh, I also like the form factor. This feels like the smallest. I mean, this not the smallest. I'll say this. I have stepped out of the Oculus ecosystem ever since Meta bought it. I don't like it. I don't want to support Meta. I have looked at my friends who have these machines and been like, "Oh, that's really neat." Like, they're doing some cool stuff with the Quest 3. Like, awesome. And I love my PSVR, too. I use it on the PC. I use it I still play in Resident Evil 4. It's one of the best experiences I've had on the on the PlayStation. Uh this is something I'm very interested in because it returns to what essentially I think VR is perfect for and that is the ability to quickly engage with it uh in

a social setting. I know that VR intrinsically doesn't feel social, but like you like there's a difference between, oh, come play Beat Saber. Stand in my room with my PC with all these wires on and and you know, but stand here and don't don't hit this thing or here's a contained thing that can do it. Also, there's a wireless video system, I believe, in this that uh there's a dual band. I'm trying to remember what they did, but essentially, but for the audio video and the controllers, there are two different Wi-Fi channels for this. So, you can wirelessly, I believe, link this to your either uh GameCube or your PC. Um, yeah.
Yeah.
So, my point my point behind this is this is so this what what a what a what a what a GDP privilege nonsense thing to say. Right now, I've gotten my VR usage to having to plug in one wire and turn on controllers.

This will allow me to not plug in a wire.
Yeah.
But not have now that wire in the way. Like this is getting closer to and you can bring this places like to play my my PSVR I need to bring the PlayStation like so this can run games independently probably with the power of around a MetaQuest 3 except it doesn't have the uh full chroma pass through for AR stuff. Um it has black and white I believe. uh or you can sync it or hard wire it or uh essentially Wi-Fi it to your PC to play games.
I I think I think this that's sort of like Valve's MMO is hey, we don't know how you're going to use this thing, but we made a cool thing and it does a bunch of stuff and however you want to use it, we think that's a cool way to use this device. So, we made it do that thing. Please enjoy. Yeah,
cuz like the coolest thing about this for me

is something that Matt hasn't mentioned yet, which is that you can use the controllers without the headset. The controllers are just controllers. You can just use the two controllers as a split controller if you want to. Right. That's it. Like that's just cool. I just like that, right? Like if you get used to playing a game on that because you played it on VR first or whatever, that's awesome. But now you have another use case for a thing. Like my uh PSVR2 controllers are like sitting in their dock unused because they only work when I'm using the PSVR2. The more technology that I have that has serves multiple functions, the better. And you can use the controllers with the Steam Machine. Great. Now, let's hope that they sell them independently.
Yeah, I Yeah,
because PlayStation, you cannot buy, at least to my knowledge, not for the

longest time, you cannot buy the PSVR2 controllers without a headset, which is infuriating.
Correct. Especially because there's some manufacturing defects with the PSVR2 controllers.
Well, even if you even if there let's say there's not one, you could break it.
Yeah.
And then what do you do?
Yeah. Um, also, uh, the it uses double A batteries. That's great. Um, and yes, it's very
They'll probably have a rechargeable option, I hope.
Yeah. I mean, you can also just use rechargeable doubleAs.
Yeah. That's a little less sexy from all the other things they're doing though. Do you know what I mean? Like the controller snaps in and all that stuff. Like
Yeah, it it there might be like a dock, right? There might be like a charging dock with like a built-in pack or whatever, but um
I would love it if there was an actual charging dock for the entire thing.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Um, uh, I also think the battery pack being on the back of the head instead of the front to balance the headset is very big. Um,

it doesn't get too hot. I am noticing the like the thickness of the pad
like behind it to keep it away from your head is good.
Yep. Um,
yep. Swapping the batteries is good. Swapping batteries on the thing is good. And they've also done a thing which I think is very smart from a marketing perspective which is that the they're marketing it the same way that Apple marketed the Vision Pro.
Are they
in some ways which is hey you can play VR games. Do you not like VR games? That's okay. This is also a monitor that you wear on your head. you can sit down and play any of the games that you normally play just on a VR headset while you're wherever, you know, so you could take your monitor with you. And one of the examples they use is someone laying down on like a, you know, model Shayes outside playing Hades 2 on the the frame.

Can I It's beautiful. It's a beautiful gift shot and it looks very cool. Can I call out one very interesting hiccup in this give?
Sure.
For whatever reason on the twoshot when you see the superimposed Hades gameplay and she's looking towards like what looks like a a hedge. You see edge of a house and a fence. Whoever put this shot together didn't move the seastands for lights out of the sides of both shots. There are just production seastands in the shot. And it's so funny because the the a shot is like a beautifully like framed up like oh it's a backyard there's a fence there's like those like porch lights and you see the trees and the other side looks nice too and there's a big Hades thing but then there's just there's just sea stands.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter. It's just it's a neat little thing.
Yeah. Um so I think that
it's cool and there's a developer kit

for it. So now people can can get things into it
and I think that that's another thing that's really important too. Um that they have said that they are going to enable um there's a an API that's going to be available to devs in Steamworks that lets them know which Steam device you're playing the game on so they can automatically load settings that are specifically configured for that device. So, let we'll use Hades 2 as an example because I'm playing it this week and because everyone is talking about it. If you're playing Hades 2 on your gaming PC, your Steam Deck, your Steam machine, or your frame, it can automatically be running at different settings despite the fact that your save file will move through the Steam cloud between all four of those devices. And this is what I this is sort of what I was getting back to was the other use case that I'm doing right now that that making it 40% faster

and easier would be a godsend. So uh back uh when the Switch 2 launched, I bought Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch to support the the for two reasons. One, to support them actually putting the entire game on the cartridge.
I wanted to vote with my dollars. And two, I wanted to be able to play it on the go. And I don't have a Steam Deck, right? The game runs pretty well. Um, I'm I'm actually quite impressed with it. But right now, because of cross save, I literally can go from my PC to my PlayStation to my There's one save the like the most recent save will auto cross save.
Mhm. Um, so like I'm getting that functionality now, which is great, but all doing it in one ecosystem will be so nice and seamless for mult like even across like if you have your gaming PC and your um your Steam machine, the settings will be different. And and the cool part is a a case user scenario, you don't want to deal with settings, so you just want to use whatever settings are the best for these prefab devices.

Great. or you want to tweak it. Maybe you've put something else in your Steam machine and you know that you can crank this thing up for whatever reason. You're going to be able to do that. Um yeah.
Yep.
I think this is very very very cool.
I'm I'm very happy about that. I think the um they're they're taking a page out of Apple's book in that having a contained ecosystem tends to be a big selling point. That's Apple's only remaining real selling point. Um and I eagerly await calling it now. It is the 17th of November, 2025 at 12:10 uh p.m.
Mark it on your X-ray calendars.
Valve's going to release a phone.
You think?
I think it's the only thing that's left. I think that they're going to do a phone that does that's like built for gaming and built for Steam and like does some amount of onthe-go stuff for like the higherend mobile devices. And I think

that it's going to be uh a really great thing and it's it's going to be the device that ties your ecosystem together on the go.
I'm going to I'm going to say they aren't in the near future. I will say within the next three to five years I would bet that is not the case. And here's why I think that not that saying that they couldn't do it and not say there's not money to be made there, but it's kind of how they've handled hardware consistently throughout this endeavor, right? Like or throughout their endeavors in general in gaming. Like to build everything they're doing here builds on their current ecosystem.
That's not to say that there aren't Steam games that could run on a phone.
Yeah. But also, they have the Steam Deck for portability. Of course, it's a different form factor and all that jazz, but like they might as well just release Steam on

phones before even attempting to do that and have specific games on your Steam account that can be played on a phone.
One of the big problems is that the Android ecosystem, which they'd have to be in, is incredibly fragmented. And so it is very difficult to develop for the Android ecosystem because there are so many different versions both of Android and of hardware that runs Android.
But yeah,
I feel like it's just it's I don't look maybe I could be entirely wrong. Every every hardware thing that they've done has never been a we need to do this. It's been a we want to do this. And I've never gathered from anything I've read about the Steam uh as a company sort of like their their ecosystem or their how how they value what they value has ever led me to believe mobile was something that they wanted to do. Because with mobile, not that the not that the game space isn't ripe or there aren't interesting mobile games, of course there are, but that's

that's that's moving that tertiarily that's moving what they do well and looking into another thing like wireless service providing that they've not done and they'd have to partner with and there's a lot of there's a lot of external things to get a phone working off the ground. Um,
I feel like also maybe even before that if there was going to be any test the waters sort of bit, the next generation Steam Deck would go the way of Apple and have an ability to have a cellular thing in it.
I think
like like iPads do and things like that.
Um,
yeah.
Again, I'm not saying it's out of the realm of possibility. I'm saying I don't think it's going to be in the near to mid future. Um, but we'll see. We'll we'll we'll we'll check back in a year.
Yeah. Uh,
and maybe I'll be eating one of my five hats.
Yeah. Right. Uh, right. Before we roll

with the ads, which we're about to do momentarily, and then onto the rest of our stories, uh, we want to hear from you in the comments. What are you excited about this? Is one of these more for you? Are you taking a pass on all of these? Does something about this release speak to you and you're like super hyped for it? What's the weirdest way you think you're gonna combine parts of this? Right? Are you gonna be like, "Well, I want a Steam machine with frame controllers in addition to the regular controller and I'm going tape the frame controllers to my feet so I can do gyro kickies while I do something else." Like, I don't know. Let us know in the comments what you think about that. Um, and I'll I'll be very interested to hear more about that. Um, now, however, it is time for us to do fake ads for things you can't buy while Twitch chat gets ads for things you can buy to keep our pre-rolls off. So, uh, we will be doing our little improv game here momentarily. Uh, Matt is going to start us off with
I am
Yeah. an ad.
An ad for a thing that you can't actually spend money on.

Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here. You know, we've been talking a lot today about the Steam Machine and Valve's fora into the hardware market. And that really leads me to believe to something that you just can't buy anymore and continually you won't be able to as time marches on. And I am of course talking about an Xbox. Now look, you could theoretically buy an Xbox, right? But can you I mean like can you really? I don't I don't think you can. You might be able to prove me wrong. You might be able to go to the internet right now and say, "Matt, I'm going to buy an Xbox." And I'd look at your receipt and I'd be like, "Did you did you buy an Xbox? Why'd you do that?
Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Uh,
ready?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay.

Hi everyone. Ru from Extra Credits here. Here to sell you the idea of an entire year without weird industry tech shakeups. That's right. It would be really great if we had like a whole year where like no major players in the tech industry did ridiculous things right after other people did ridiculous things cuz my heart can't take it. I can't take the lows of Xbox tanking themselves into the floor and like all of the negativity and then Gabin just like swoops in with his Minecraft cape and is like never fear citizens, I'll save the industry. And then like releases three pieces of awesome looking hardware like all at once, right? Like I can't take it. Can't take it. A whole year. Just a whole year where nobody does anything stupid. Thanks. Hey everybody, Matt from Extra Credits here. We've had a lot of fun today talking about all of the hardware things that Valve is going to be doing in 2026 hopefully. And we just have to remember

that here's something else. You can't buy hype. We we know that hype it comes in many different forms. And uh people will say that advertising can lead you to uh cause yourself to have a larger quantity of hype. But do you want it? Do you really want it? You could be excited about it. We're excited about this stuff. But also I want to remind everybody that hype as a product has a very very very short shelf life. So while we are excited for all of these offerings, we will have to wait until 2026 to see if the hype is real. Don't buy hype.
Don't buy it. That's not good. Yeah.
Uh, we got 30 seconds. What What secret should we tell people who aren't getting ads?
Um, 86% of statistics are made up on the spot.
It's very, very true. Very true.
Don't tell anyone that.
Yeah, I know. It's a Yeah,
because then we have to change the number
like the combination to my luggage.

Uh yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm genuinely really excited about all of these just because I do like when we get major players in the hardware space, but also at the same time I think it's just been a tumultuous year. Also, I see chat mentioning that the Game Award noms are out. That's cool.
Are they?
We'll talk about next week probably. I guess
you mean the week after next? Because we're not here.
Yeah, because we're not here next week,
right? Yeah, we'll talk about him at some point. uh don't know when, but we'll we'll talk about at some point. We'll also probably I'm not going to I'm not going to say that live on air cuz I think that would be inadvisable of me. We'll maybe have ideas about the Game Awards bringing to you here at some point. Okay,
great.
Um let's move on to our next
We're going to move on.
We're going to move on from the Steam Machine. Uh we've had a good long chat about it. Let's let's move on to the next thing which is Blops. Black Ops.

Blops. I will refer to it as Blops because I don't respect Black Ops 7. So, it's Blops. Um, Bops ran into some trouble.
So, it's launch. Not good. Not Not great. Not great. And then they started having a problem which is
Was it um was it was it uh everyone was having too much fun?
No, Matt. The problem is that no one is having any fun. So in addition to um the fact that there are some serious like design issues with the campaign, including but not limited to the fact that even though it's a single player campaign, you have to play online. Have to play online and it'll time you out.
Very well.
You can't pause
and you have to wait for a lobby to play the single player campaign for video game online. Great move. How much does this game cost?
$70, Matt.
Great.
The other big problem they're running into is that people are getting all 70

of those dollars back from Valve despite exceeding the normal Valve refund limit because they goofed. They goofed pretty bad actually. They did not disclose the amount of AI that they used during development adequately on Steam, which means that they are in violation of Steam's policy, which means that people are just getting full refunds for the game because the game was falsely advertised on Steam. In that in that terms of service that that Steam has for companies to release their games, does that also mean that they don't get like Steam's cut back?
I believe that
they owe it.
I believe that is the case.
We have to look into that, but that'd be the way that'd be the way I'd do it.
Yeah. Uh someone someone was saying it's uh it's 80s. No, the the the

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 I have down is 70. Unless I'm looking at the wrong call.
Either way,
Black Ops 7.
Either way, um yeah, not not a good look. Uh and companies are going to continue to try to get away with this sort of thing. Um I can only imagine after the proposed acquisition of Electronic Arts, uh things like this might uh continue and be better.
Yeah, this is like not great. Also, I I I do feel kind of bad because I actually think Okay, I'll do this without any spoilers. I've seen footage of parts of the campaign.
Sure.
And AI, you said aside, I actually think that they're doing some interesting stuff where they're doing like Destiny or MMO style raid mechanics in boss fights in Black Ops, which to my

knowledge is new. Lots of some people don't like it and that's totally fine. But them taking shots at genuinely new ways to interpret Call of Duty and doing things I think is good because Call of Duty has been formula for longer than I've had this job.
Yeah. It's it's not like the dunking that has happened and will continue to happen for a little bit longer is not because we think that the design of what they are doing is boring or bad. It is that uh it feels again more like uh corporate tom foolery and skull duggery uh that has invaded probably some very passionate people trying to make this franchise not just be uh the 19th clone of itself.
It's interesting that AI was used in this game because of the way that this series has innovated literally just copying itself over itself over itself over itself for much of its lifespan.

Um, this one it feels like the actual game play and way it does it, not again the implementation of BDB online for a single player campaign or using AI assets in it, etc. Feels like they did try to innovate. So, it d it double sucks that it's getting dunked on so hard because I imagine there's some interesting stuff there if they had just kind of taken the more honorable paths to to get it in front of people,
right? because the the good stuff is getting drowned out by the story that hey,
yeah,
a streamer played it live on stream, finished the campaign, and then got a full $70 refund and showed their entire audience that like you can get a refund for the game,
right? Like that's the story, unfortunately. So,
um, and I believe the the AI that kind of got them into trouble was specifically, um, like, uh, this like card based things or something. And the graphics on the cards,
the calling cards are AI generated. Um,

uh, the the little sort of the background for your profile thing um that pops up frequently in game. Uh, a lot of
So, the budget on this game
Yeah. to not pay artists to make these these graphics that are going to be pretty much front and center on display around people's cards, etc., is just like it's pure corpo Like this isn't this isn't like a a small indie that like
right
can't survive if it doesn't do this because it's like three people in a dream. And again, even then I have some problems with it, right? Like this is Call of Duty.
Yeah.
Why are they cutting corners?
One of the most recognizable video game IPs on the planet that is actively and upfront saying with its product that it

does not want to pay artists. It's It's insane.
Uh
that's correct. So, I already didn't like Call of Duty and now I really don't like Call of Duty. So, it's very easy for me to take a pass on this. But like
if you think because I'm going to like Yeah,
they might be doing It seems like from what people are saying about the actual gameplay of the campaign, there are interesting new swings being taken. If this wasn't going on, I might buy it.
But I'm not.
Yeah.
And I know they don't need me.
Yeah.
I mean, let's be real, they do. Everyone does. But I'll be humble. Am I talking out loud?
Yeah.
I'm talking out loud. Um,
regardless, what a what a what a miss.
Yeah.

What a flipping miss.
Yep. Uh, okay. Speaking of companies doing AI things and then just entering the find out phase with a rapidity that boggles the mind.
Jeez.
Let's talk about Craftton. Let's talk about Craft. All right. So Craftton,
can you re Yeah. Phil, can you just give the the short version of how we got here? So, in amongst everything with the Subnotica lawsuit and acquiring Last Epoch and like a bunch of other stuff, Craftton has announced um that they are going to focus on being an AI first company uh and that that means that they will be and I'm quoting prioritizing AI as a central and primary means of problem solving and fostering change in individuals and organizations, increasing companywide productivity and accelerating mid to long-term corporate value growth. growth and that AI is the way to do this and

that that's why they need to be an AI first company
at this point. Why don't they just leave in the Lauram Ipsum? Like will can you just read that again? They will be prioritizing AI as a central and primary means of problem solving and fostering change in individuals and organizations, increasing companywide productivity and accelerating mid to long-term corporate value growth. Hold on. I I I I here You want to smell You want to smell smoke? I got another one.
I want to I I am physically incapable of following that sentence structure. Like I I'm not the smartest man, but I have a general five out of 10 level of education and that just cooks my noodles. So,
you got to you got to go back a job, Matt. Right. You got to go back a job.

Okay. You're talking to a big wig at MTV and you need to make your job sound the most exciting it possibly can while saying nothing that is actually committing you to doing anything at all. Right.
I mean, back in the day, my pitch, and it would have worked up until now when they're shutting down, would just be like, "What if we just played ridiculousness reruns for 16 hours a day?"
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Hold on. I've got it. Okay. Are you ready for another one? This is great. I love this. We could do this all day. The core purpose is to support members in proactively designing their growth direction and embarking on new challenges both inside and outside the company amid the era of AI transformation. The company plans to support members in
inside and outside the company.
That's correct, Matt. We'll get to we'll get to the rest of this here in a second because there's more to this story, but um

Craftton Craftton, I know this might be a translation, but I don't think it is.
Stop.
Okay, let's get some help.
Let's be clear. This is a South Korean company if I'm
I believe that is correct. Yes. So it is entirely possible this is a translation issue. In fact, I need to believe it is. I need to believe it is because otherwise I don't I don't know how to human with with them.
Right. Well, they don't know how to human either anymore because in an effort to move towards their AI first everything, they're offering um uh hold on, I'll use their words. The company plans to support members in autonomously deciding whether to continue the direction of change internally or expand externally.

So, you're giving people exit packages.
That's correct, Matt. They're giving people exit packages. They're giving people the option to leave the company if they don't like the AI d AI first direction.
I actually think it's a little bit more. I I don't think it's if they're if they don't like the AI thing. They're what they're doing is trying to limit. There's a couple things here. And companies do this all the time. Uh Viacom, not even Vikcom anymore. Paramount CBS, all that stuff has been doing. It's whatever. Um they are essentially doing uh trying to get their layoff numbers down by getting people to voluntarily leave with severance packages.
Yes.
Look, any company can do that. In fact, one could argue that that is a humane way of doing it if the second part of that or the other shoe or whatever dropped where if that doesn't happen to hit their quota, then they're just going to lay people off anyway. Then there's also a thing that has happened in major companies that I cannot discuss because

I whatever but like you can do this you can do this level of uh voluntary uh sort of severance and and getting people to leave of their own accord but you know what normally happens especially in a company culture where people aren't exactly happy too many people take it and then there's not enough institutional knowledge for the system to run no matter how much AI they have plugged into their dayto-day. There is a real chance depending on how this is structured that so many people at this company take it that it's just gone.
They might have done things to limit that etc. But like oftent times these things are not well thought out.
That's true. see see the ability for any sort of AI product to actually make a meaningful profit
outside of five companies buying and selling uh invisible uh
there's a giant if you look into it

there's a giant oraoros
of those five companies eating each other right it's just five snakes eating the tail of the next one in like a weird
satanic summoning circle looking design anyway
and this isn't to say that you can't use this technology in interesting and good ways that will benefit people. It's just no comp not most companies don't seem to be doing it using this stuff in medical uh models for research or or like if there was a commitment from literally anyone
saying we're going to utilize these tools and not fire a soul. We are going to use this to make everyone's jobs easier and hopefully make it actually profitable for folks. And you could listen, you can back up and say that's still wrong because it's building off the backs of other people, etc. And that's totally fine and a decent stance, too. But I have not seen a company utilizing these tools as they were initially pitched to us as a way to make

work easier.
And there are there are cases for a thing that we would now call AI, but I would call machine learning that are very useful in game development and in the games industry. They will do things like optimizing complicated processes. They will make better um uh computer opponents for a variety of games. Right? There are there are ways to use machine learning that don't burn an entire data center down or uh cause people to lose their jobs or involve incredible amounts of plagiarism. Right? The technology has uses. People have just decided that that's not the hip way to use it. Right? And that's the problem.
It's not the hip. Well, they haven't decided it's not the hip way. It's not the way that the people on the top can make the most money. It's not enough to make more money. It has to be the most money.
Yeah, that's
I just spit all over myself because I'm mad.
Yeah.
Um I want to move a little bit to the second part of this. Uh because I explored the the Craftton website. By the way, Craftton is the people who make Subnotica and PUBG. Uh there's a whole

thing about Subnotica 2 going on between the the original creators and the company, yada yada yada yada. So, I was digging on Craftton's website. Um, and of course everything is a lot of AR AR. Wow. Uh, corpo jargon, but I want to kind of like talk through the four principles of their AI. Um, essentially their uh AI ethics tab. Uh, Will, can we make this big?
We can. We can make that much bigger.
And then we can remove the lower one.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm working. I'm getting out.
I can do three things at once, Matt. I can do at most.
I mean, you might be able to. Okay.
Two things. So the first one the principle number one I um AI for people we bear in mind that human dignity is the foundation of all AI technology. Uh we will we will strive to adhere to the principle that the basic rights of humans must not be violated at any stage of AI research development and and unioniz uh utilization. I keep wanting to say it's unionization. That's not what it says. Uh number two respect for

diversity. We will aim to consider various human characteristics such as culture, race, gender, and age in the process of AI research, development, and utilization. We will strive to ensure that our research and services are not tainted by unfair discrimination or bias. Number three, protection of personal information. We will endeavor to protect users personal information. We will aim to gather and process personal information in compliance with applicable laws. And number four, security or securing transparency for trust. We are continuously striving to develop trustworthy AI. We will make efforts to transparently disclose how our systems operate if needed.
Yeah, but like do we believe any of that?
There's not a single actual promise or anything in here. uh we bear in mind, we aim to consider, we will endeavor, we're continuously striving,

they are set up to not do any of these things because they're really they're really trying.
They're trying so hard.
Really trying.
They're trying so They're trying so hard and got so far, but in the end they're trying to make people voluntarily lay off themselves so they can hire to basically run it with AI.
That's correct.
That's
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Darkwolf got the last one. Darkwolf got the the the the $50 if needed under transparency. It's It's needed.
Yeah.
You goobers.
It's I I like more text. It's antismart. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound. Literally none of those things. Smart goals are a thing in corporate America. Don't worry about them. If you've never heard of them, I'm so glad for you. Pray that continues. Um
I like do or do not.
I like I like I like Nio's. I could do that, too. I will endeavor to pay each

member of Brad a million dollars.
Yeah. And no, you've you're endeavoring every day. You're endeavoring for that.
That's right. Yeah.
It's it's A person is smart. People are stupid.
Correct.
Okay. And I and and what bugs me about this and sort of like I I know we're focusing on crafting because it's this is a gaming show and they make games and whatever, but like this as we put it, the Oraora sort of like of all these companies like sort of buying and selling fake things for fake money from each other for a and I'll use this in air quotes, a product that is not yet profitable and no one can find a path to profitability outside of hoping if they shove it down everyone's throats for years, we'll start to pretend we like it and we'll pay for it so it doesn't go away. I would pay to make it go away. There's your actual business model, Google. And God, this is some

dark web nonsense I don't want to put out there. I would pay you like three extra dollars to make Gemini stop. Like, hold it ransom, but like at least then we wouldn't be just idiocracying our entire internet.
Yeah.
Sorry, I'm getting off track.
Hold on. I I I feel like we've got a couple more good zingers before we move on to the next one that I just want to bring up. Uh the bull says, "I'm endeavoring to believe anything they said." Excellent. Uh and I also like Dragon Gamers. They have a concept of a plan. I feel like that might be giving them too much credit, but good job.
It I I I'm what? Hot garbage.
Smelly hot garbage.
Let's move on to something that is hopefully not hot garbage.
Yeah. Okay. So, so the Mario Galaxy I
feel better already.
Yeah, the Mario Galaxy trailer is out and it includes this and I'm so happy. Um, I actually watched

the original Super Mario Brothers animated movie to like make sense of the trailer. Um,
did you So, you hadn't seen it before. You
I had not seen it before. I watched it last week.
Thoughts?
Uh, it fine. It's it accomplishes the same thing that the Minecraft movie does, which is that it is a fun romp through an IP in a way that will be charming for people who understand it and be palatable for people who don't. Um,
four quadrant movie, baby.
But, but I will say the top tier character that I demand returns for Galaxy. They need to return especially because it's Galaxy Nus Luma. Bring Nius Luma back right now, you cowards. You won't do it. It's the tiny Luma in a cage that's constantly cutely wishing for the sweet release of death. Bring that child back for this because that was the best part of the whole movie as a millennial nihilist. It's great.
Did you stay till the end? Did you watch

to the end?
I think I saw the postredit scene.
There's there's there's
the the song. No, I don't think so.
It might have done the small window thing because that that little Lumi comes back.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so, uh,
yeah, I I think that this is a great sign that Nintendo and and the movie makers understand understand the assignment. This feels like the most like, okay, we understand the assignment. We promise, this picture shows that we understand the assignment.
Sure. I I'm excited for this, too. I liked the Super Mario Brothers movie. Uh I But then I did watch it in tandem with the original '9s one. And I find even though the '9s one, the first one, the live action one is insane and not not as directly Mario

Brothers, I find that it is a more interesting film adaptation than the new one is.
Sure,
obviously there's more visual polish and it looks more exactly like the game, but like at this point, I forget which one of my friends said it, like at this point, it's like why not just play the game? Like the story in the New Super Mario Brothers movie isn't anything really. It's very cookie cutter. There's humor. There's really the Jack Black song is fire. Like there's elements to it, but I think your your your um will your thought process of it like alongside the Minecraft movie is apt, right? Like look, if you just want as much of this experience in a visual medium as you can get, this sure will entertain the four quadrant audience. Uh, and since it's a kids movie, that means the parents are going to have to go and there's probably going to buy multiple tickets and it's going to do great. I will see it in the theaters. I think the trailer is endearing. Roselina uh going ham on a

mech. I'm here for it.
Yeah. I I also do like that they um it would have been very easy to lean into the old style Mario where Peach and um Daisy and Roselina were all like damsels in distress.
Yeah. But the best part of the movie is that Luigi is the damsel in distress. And like that's the best part to me and I'm really I'm really happy. I think I I'm I'm just excited. It'll be good. And I will note
Nintendo if you're looking for more Nintendo movies, you can watch our last episode. We opened with like a bunch of bangers that you could purchase the rights to from us for um a quadrillion dollars.
Oh yeah. Um, you can make that out to Matt and Will Incorporated. Our accountant is a is a small black cat.
Yeah, don't worry about it.
She'll get back to you.
Okay. Uh, next up, chat. We're gonna

we're gonna we're gonna talk about a thing and then I have a challenge for all of you. Horizon Steel Frontiers got announced. Horizon Steel Frontiers is an MMO Horizon game. That's pretty interesting. It is by NCOFT. That will ruffle some feathers and some people will be uninterested because it's NCOFT and that's understandable. Other people will not care so much and it will be a thing. Um, very interested in seeing how this goes, whether it's like a genuine attempt to like make something enduring or just have this be a flash in the pan.
It seems like because of how much Guerilla is working with them, it feels like a legitimate attempt to me.
I agree. There have definitely been attempts to spin well-known IPs into MMO like things that end up being freetoplay and microtransaction laden beyond all belief and not actually fun. Um, but
you know what's funny? Annie actually has my as my call right here. This is my first thought. And look, I

that was my first thought. Uh, I like my single player games, my single player games. I don't need I personally and apparently me and anime me and Annie personally don't need Horizon to be an MMO. Um I understand why they're doing it. Horizon makes sense to me in a at the very least in a marketing area because it is a visually interesting world with not a lot of lore answers for the laymen who have seen the robotic dinosaurs but not played the game. So it is visually distinct, but it is not a story that everyone who has seen pictures of it knows and loves. Like it's funny, you could tell some of the interviewers, I think in the um in the IGN article or whatever, uh they're like, "Is Aloy in the game?" And it's and and someone in the comments actually of that was like, "That's the least important question for what they're trying to do here, right?"
Whether or not that's our value

proposition of what is valuable. Again, I go with Annie. I want Aloy story. I want the story of these characters in the world. The world is cool, but like something I experienced uh with playing uh Call of the Mountain, which I love again VR game on PSVR 2. Um, I don't care about the world. Like, I like playing in it, but like I'm not invested in where we are in the Horizon Earth.
Uh, you know,
let me offer a counterpoint.
Yeah,
I really like the world of Horizon. I love Aloy. Aloy is a great character. No complaints about Aloy. Let me be very clear about that up front. I love the world a lot more because the world is so interestingly weird. It is very weird the way that they have done different groups of people, the way they have told stories about different kinds of machines, the way culture has evolved. If you're a lore junkie or you like world building as sort of an exercise, right? If you've ever played the game Microscope and you're like, "Wow, this

is how I want to play a TGRPG." This might this kind of exercise is not lost on you. And that's what I like about it. I like the idea that I get to go out and like explore it differently potentially with friends and to see a different side of the world, a different kind of experience, right? That isn't Aloy's very compelling, very good story, right? But this is a different perspective. I am also sort of uniquely situated to see the value in a big budget MMO that takes part of a franchise that is traditionally single player because my mug has a Final Fantasy 14 symbol on it. Like it's right. So like for me that's less of a problem. I understand the objection, right? I just think there for for a group of people there is something interesting here.
Sure. And here is why. So I I agree with you completely. Here is why I am doubly not excited for it.
Sure. It is seemingly

mobile first
and that's a problem.
There's nothing wrong with mobile. There's nothing wrong with mobile. But for instance, like I don't even think there's a PlayStation 5 version of this. There'll be a PC version of it, but I think it's from what I understand it's going to kind of be like Diablo Immortal in its PC version. Maybe I'm entirely off here, but it seems like all of the press for this seems like they they said the mobile part in places that mean that's the focus, but they don't talk about the mobile part a lot. There's something weird here. Um, also from the mechanical perspective of how you control this game and from what they've shown gameplay, it looks kind of

uh Monster Hunteresque and there's Monster Hunter mobile games. That's totally fine. Um, but like it just doesn't I'm having a hard time picturing how with the what I've seen this plays doing that on a phone. Yeah, I think that's a very fair objection, right? Like I I think I I I'll tell you where I'm at.
I am excited for the concept, but suspending all further hype until I actually see the game. Not a trailer, not an announcement, the game. It needs finished form, the one we can play. Then I might get excited for it, right? I'm like interested in the idea of Horizon MMO and that's enough to make me look at it and see if it's for me.
I'm pumped for the next single player Horizon.
Sure. And Guerilla I believe is still working on that. Like it's not that because one of the advantages of this being NCOFT is this is not all the

Horizon eggs.
Yep.
So again that's another reason why I do like that like companies are doing this. Like you can even look at like whether you like them or don't like them. What? Blubber. Blubber team. Is that right? Or blubber. What's the companies that are remaking the um Silent Hills?
Oh, I don't know. I'm paying attention. But like there's there's
companies uh there's another high-profile one that did Oh, even hell even um whoever did uh the the remake of Oblivion like again is it you get a thing that will work for 70 to 80% of people and the team who made the IP run the IP or doing new stuff gets to keep doing the new stuff and not be bolted down to whatever the side project money hustle is.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Uh also, um here's a challenge chat.
It's a horizon game.
Oh, yeah.
What other MMO for out that is like a

bolt of lightning on a clear day will land directly on top of this? What is going to step on this release so hard that we never hear about it and it is doomed to failure from the get-go? It's a Horizon game.
The easiest The easiest version if if precedent is anything is The Legend of Zelda MMO will release the same day.
Yes.
As the Horizon Steel Frontiers MMO.
Um, and you know what? They'll even launch it two separate days to make up for uh Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
Um, just to make sure that they really stamp out any chance this has. What other What other properties could drown out Horizon's MMO with their own MMO?
We We've got the We've got the two easy ones, uh, WoW Midnight and Final Fantasy 14 8.0.
Sure.
The Cyberpunk sequel.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Cyberpunk MMO. Cyberpunk 20778.
The Elder Scrolls 6.
Sure.
A Pokemon MMO, which would be a get the

hell out of the way on the level of Grand Theft Auto 6. By the way, a Pokemon MMO is the end of a lot of people's ideas cuz like Yeah. Titanfall,
the Titanfall 3 MMO.
Yeah. Somehow GTA 6 I like that one.
Somehow GTA 6 has returned. Uh a Warframe mobile release.
Yeah.
Oh, Kyle, you you
right. They just make specifically not not World of Starcraft. Specifically an MMO based on Starcraft Ghost, the cancelled N64K PlayStation game.
It's in that era.
Yeah,
you might as well say it's going to be um Warhammer 40k Fire Warrior, which
Dogbert Dog has a great one. What if just Horizon 3 comes out at the same time? That's also an MMO.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. They're like, "We're sick of everyone else stepping on our hype. What if we do it?"

Yeah. Uh I like uh I do like this one. Hello Kitty Island Adventure Reboot MMO. Yes, sure. Correct. 100%.
Uh okay. Uh we are running short on time, so let's let's keep it moving. Uh one more uh an update. So you you remember you remember Rockstar? You you remember them?
You remember you remember how they fired a bunch of people? Uh and those and those people were
I believe it was 31 in the in the uh
in the UK
UK and uh three in Canada I think is it correct?
Um so uh the pretty strong evidence that that was in an effort to uh disrupt ongoing organization efforts at Rockstar. Um and that that uh allegation is leveled by ID G IWGB the union involved with that organization effort. Um, and now, uh, because Rockstar won't talk to them. Shocker.

Uh, IWGB is saying, "All right, cool. We said we'd talk to you, but you won't talk to us. Court, we'll see you in court." They're suing Rockstar. So, this could be bad for Rockstar uh, in the long term.
Yeah. I don't know if they It's funny. I wonder if you just get so big that you don't kind of real and again this isn't going to sink GTA 6 is going to like it it it's just it it will I think this will balloon to a point where it is no longer the most profitable option for them to have done this and truly that's the only thing that needs to happen to sort of hopefully make sure that this doesn't keep happening consistently.
Yep. You just have to make sure that the that the monetary value of what was done was not the most profit they could make and that will get them to knock in line. Uh I will say I just put this in our notes, Will, and we if you're watching this on the VOD, you can go to the show notes once it's all posted. Uh uh People

Make Games went to Edinburgh and did a really really great look at what was happening with the protest and with a couple other things going on. So there's a link to that as well. Uh they're doing great work over there keeping track of this
and um you should definitely check out that video because there's a lot more information here. We've talked about it on a couple games for breakfast, but this is just the update of um of that and it got it was it gave me an excuse to make a bust makes me feel good uh logo with the Rockstar thing. So that was nice.
Very good. So uh here's to here's to the union's continued success. uh may they get uh all of the remunerations and justice that they uh deserve and desire out of the UK courts.
Uh all right. And then last up, a little a little salt of dessert. Um which is uh recently we did Deep Rock Galactic stuff. Um one of the things that uh Coffee Stain uh has been working on or that the Deep Rock team has been working on, I should say, is a new roglike Deep Rock Galactic game. Yes, I'm aware it

exists. Yes, it will probably become my personality for no less than a week when it comes out. Yes, I will probably put on the fake beard and the hat and open a breakfast with Rock and Stone. I know it's fine. Um, but uh that is being delayed to give them more time to make it, but in the meantime, they're just releasing even more stuff for free for Deep Rock Galactic. Uh, this is kind of this is sort of one of the win-wins, I think, when a company's like, "Hey, we're delaying the sequel to or the the add-on or the spin-off of a game that you know and love uh a little longer to make it good." Right. Good. Delay more games. Make games good. Don't crunch devs. Easy.
Yeah.
But we also had a bunch of stuff that we were planning on doing. So, we're just going to do that for the game that we already have that you know and love. Just have more content for Deep Rock Galactic Rock and Stone. Great. Great. It's just a win-win story. I just I like these as like little fun like a little a little sweet treat at the end of

breakfast. Uh it's very nice.
Yeah.
Very nice.
Uh
this brings us to the end of Games for Breakfast. I believe we've had all the games for breakfast. Will,
that's right. We have had all of Games for Breakfast. Uh ju just a clarification, didn't that Rogike uh not already exist? No. Two different games. Ro um Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is different than the Rog like game which is going to be a different standalone Deep Rock game in first person.
Their biggest problem is messaging.
That's correct. That is definitely their biggest problem. Fortunately for them, the Deep Rock community is so incredibly entrenched and loves the games so much that they'll just buy all of the games that say Deep Rock on them and they'll get the one they want. Uh, the dancing bread. How does one eat a game? Very carefully.
One bite at a time.
Precision is key.
Um, will, what's going on over on the Twitch channel uh the rest of the day.
Uh, I'm so glad you asked, Matt. We're going to be playing a game that uh

recently released. It's a extraction looter on that recently came to Steam that everyone's super excited for. It's Escape from Duck. You thought I was going to say Tarov? No, that game's got the worst reviews on Steam right now. No, we're going to play be playing single player. Escape from Duckov. It's like Escape from Tarov, only it's third person in You're a duck. I'm so excited. And then later this later this week, tomorrow and Wednesday, I'll be checking out Hades 2 in a special extended episode of the road review. I haven't played it all yet, so come uh hang out as I explore Hades 2 for the first time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh also, thank you, Danal. I really appreciate uh you letting Gabe use your computer. I know Gabe has been jumping around entirely saying hi through everyone who's watching's uh systems. So yeah, I think that's very special. Also, hey everybody, if you've liked the show, please leave a comment on the VOD if you're watching it on YouTube or message us over on Blue Sky. Will has the graphic that will slide up in approximately 5 4 3 2 1. Uh you can talk

to us about anything that we've talked about today. You can talk to us about anything we didn't talk about today. We'll probably answer more of them if it's about stuff we talked about today.
That's correct.
Um, but no, we very much appreciate your time here. And, uh, to sort of celebrate that, I want to end the show like we always do. Um,
essentially to to foster community and make sure that we all know that we're all part of the the same team going forward into this week. It's a trying and and tribulating times and we all are here because we love games andor breakfast at the same time. So, with that in mind, I would like everybody to please, and we all know how to do this, is we've done this every week. If everyone would please just get up off their chair or their computer, if you're in a car, don't do this. You can skip this week. Um, and do what you always do, and it's leave room for Gabe. Bye, everybody. Gabe, you can just take the seat. You can It's right there. [Applause] [Music]