Halo comes to PlayStation, The AWS outage, and Counter-Strike's Market Crash! | Games For Breakfast

[music]
Good morning, MATT, I GUESS.
[screaming] [groaning]
GOOD MORNING, WILL. GOOD MORNING TO ALL of you. Welcome to Games for Breakfast. THE ONLY INTERNET BREAKFAST TALK SHOW. WE TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK'S GAMING AND TECH NEWS, BUT THEN ALSO I'M A TORNADO. It's our Halloween special. We
off. It caught caught on Frostmourne. Don't [clears throat] Okay, this is hm all right.
hi everyone. Good morning. Good morning and welcome to a hard-hitting episode of Games for Breakfast where we're going to talk to you about the gaming stories that matter in a very serious tone having nothing to do with dressing up for Halloween. No fun here, no games, no candy. Just just serious games journalism.
um Twitch chat is just very excited that

there's a tornado emote that they just found in the globals on Twitch. So, that's happening. If you feel it the entire time. Yeah.
Chase it. Okay.
Like we're going to be chasing these stories today, am I right, Will? Tornado is ready. Oh dear. Chat, if you're wondering why we're a little silly, a little punchy, and a little tired, it's because uh we had a heck of a weekend um actually. We did our 12-hour uh charity stream on Saturday to celebrate my birthday. I am now older. Um and with your assistance, we raised $4,600 and 89 cents uh for Direct Relief in a mere 12 hours. We smashed our original $3,000 goal. So, we will be doing community uh game streams here on the Twitch channel on a Saturday in November and a Saturday in December cuz that was the deal that I made with people. Um so, please look forward to

that. If you're not uh if you're a YouTube member, a patron, or a subscriber here on Twitch, you can join the Discord and you'll get a chance to vote on what game we're going to be playing for those. Things that I've thought of so far include things like Mario Kart or Minecraft, but not Mario Party because I like you all too much for that. That's right. You're too generous. Again, thank you so much for the donating to Direct Relief to make this happen uh over the weekend. It was 12 hours. It was It was somehow partially less insane than right now. Um but it was also very very fun and Deep Rock Galactic is a good time. Also, I love this. This is my first app and I'm loving it already.
[laughter]
Thank you, AJ.
All right. Well, if you're joining us here for the first time, Godspeed.
I had a tree, Chat. Just one tree, but it fell off that it was supposed to be right here. YouTube has found their global tornado emotes, so now we have dueling Great. This is excellent. That's why it's called Twisters.

If you feel it No. Zowie knows. I You couldn't hear it. She did the call and response. That's I'm I You know what, Matt? I believe you, but only because you're dressed as a tornado and that makes you a reliable witness for things that have happened on the internet. I would never spin any fact, Will. Should we get to our our first story? That it will it be in no way twisted? Okay. Yep. Uh-huh. Oh god, I'm in pain. This is
is pants that I am not wearing. I am wearing pants, just not the costume pants. And the pants have a cow on them. I am so glad that you let us know that you Okay, yep. All right.
tornado can't even I got to start coffee. Geez, tornado can't start talking about serious games journalism without having a cup of Joe. Am I right, Chat? Brandon, Janet, what

up? Happy early Halloween, too. This is absolutely my favorite holiday.
[laughter]
Uh I look like cotton candy gummy to me. I could be a cotton candy gummy I could be a gummy cotton candy flavored tornado. Last week uh as we were getting ready to go live, we discussed whether or not we should talk about this and we decided that we weren't going to until we had more information. And now we've got more information. Last week there was an AWS outage, which Which I had nothing to do with as a tornado.
That's correct. Uh in fact
my attorney says that's all I'm allowed to say about it. Um It was in fact due to a DNS error and anyone who's ever worked with any amount of uh internet will tell you it's never a dis DNS error it couldn't be a dis DNS error Oh, wait. It was a DNS error. Um so, Amazon had a little whoopsie-poopsie

with uh DNS for one of their data centers and a whole bunch of things broke from beds with $200 a month subscriptions. Did you hear about this, Matt?
Yes. Okay, so did you hear that it got better? Better? It got better.
The bed story got better? I'm tired. That doesn't mean I'm dead. Um uh so, these beds have $200 a month subscriptions and the reason that they fold up if they can't get internet access is that they can't determine whether or not you've paid your subscription to sleep in your bed. No, no, they just Yeah, they just fold up. They They had There has to be a a sensor or something. I mean, obviously that's evil and stupid and dumb and and uh
[sighs]
buyer beware, I guess. But also, there has to be a sensor so it doesn't curl up

while you're in the bed.
Yeah, no. I like I you know, or or I like Tomato Curry's idea. Um it's cuz the bed made from shrimps. Which is bugs, as everyone knows. Right.
Shrimps is bugs. Um yeah, so yeah, there are beds as a service now. So, that's Yeah, that's great. Um but interestingly and more on topic for our uh purp Well, sorry. But even before we get more on topic to the gaming stuff, I want to talk to Brandon, Janet directly about like actually like the idea of the smart home. Uh-huh. Uh this is actually a serious thing I'm saying even though I'm dressed like a tornado. Uh how many people in both chats right now have smart home devices? Like I would say something like not just like a Google Home or an Alexa or something like that, but like some like other aspects that are connected to it. Anything from lighting to locks to uh I know there's some water things you can do. Like um Yeah, there's
curious.

Yeah, like the the connect the idea of a connected smart home. Now, I'm willing to bet yeah, that that what we're going to run into is a lot of Chris's point, which is that um we have too many people who are too uh deeply involved in technology as a career to to be technology enthusiasts. See, that's really the problem, right?
I'm just going through This is what I wanted. This is what I wanted. Yeah, I I also have a smart thermostat, but that's also because my old thermostat broke and it's very difficult to get one that isn't a smart thermostat. But it's also isolated and doesn't have like any of the
Now, here's the thing. Um this isn't to to shame anybody who has it. I just I um I I I feel like I I fall into the camp of the folks that like uh sort of just we we pop the messages up on the screen. They were, you know, the I

I could barely trust myself to remember to turn things on and off and or lock things or whatever. I don't need uh another thing to be able to do it and then make me question if it's being done even more, especially when outages like this happen. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Um so, in that same vein, uh it turns out that a lot of a lot of things um depend on the AWS services that went out, including but not limited to Fortnite, some Nintendo services uh for both Switch and Switch 2, um Palworld, Roblox, the New York Times puzzle app,
Which I feel like probably was the thing that got the needle moving enough for them to fix
[laughter]
Everyone I know is addicted to every one of those games.
Right. So, it's a um it just it's kind of an interesting thing, right? We talk a lot a lot about

scalability. We talk a lot about how uh for instance, um when Silksong came out and crashed Steam, lots of people were like, "Well, couldn't you just do scalable cloud servers?" This is the consequence of that, right? Like the cloud is not a mythical place made of tornado goodness. The cloud is someone else's computer. You're just trusting that they're better at keeping their computer online than you are. And for the most part, that's true. For the most part, Amazon is pretty good at keeping most things mostly running most of the time. Like 95 95 95, right? Like we're not in the 99 bracket. There are plenty of things that break. It's not the best, but it is functional kind of in the way you want it to be. But now, when it like there are so many things that rely on it that when it goes down, it's like it's sort of Have you ever had a major

power outage in a neighborhood and like you just go outside at the same time as everyone else? Everyone like looks around to see how much of the neighborhood lost power and like you have weird conversations with your neighbors about like, "Hey, how long have you been out? Do you know when it'll be back?" Like it's like that only for the internet. Um Like it's just gone with the wind. But here's the other thing. Uh what I want to go back a while ago in in Queens, uh we were watching God, what were we watching? It was a super spooky movie. Um and then all the power went out. Nice. But but then outside, and it was 9:00 or 10:00 at night, turned bright blue. And everyone walked outside and looked up and chat I kid you not, it was essentially like we were looking at a sky beam miles away. Like a blue light just

emanating and like a weird sort of hum. And this is not a dream. This happened. Um this is also not a joke. I thought for a literal a good I don't know, 30 seconds. I was like "Okay, it's not it's not like a a bomb or anything. Like we didn't get hit with an EMP. That's not it." I was like, "I guess it's aliens." Like my brain could not could not function
yeah, yeah, yeah. and figure out Does anyone want to guess what it actually was? Again, it lit up outside at night like it was daytime. And there was a point in the distance that you could sort of see it emanating from. Does anyone Does anyone have an idea of what it was? I have a pretty good guess, but I'll let chat take it take a first shot. I'm just sort of saying uh Raccoon I like I look all those watchables raccoon. That's what it was.
it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a it's a transformer fire. Yeah, so there's a

power plant a bit away and like it went and it was shooting electricity everywhere. Transformers are like the scariest thing that is probably near you that you don't know anything about. Transformers are super scary and full of a lot of electricity, like a lot a lot of electricity. Like not like haha humorous joke electricity, like pile of ash electricity. It's a lot. But that's yeah, and blue was the clue. You're absolutely right. It's It's It was very very interesting. We actually had a friend We had We see still here and he still works there, who works for the electric company. And we called him and he's like, "Yeah, that's exactly what it is. No one was hurt, but it we just had a huge We just had a huge problem." This is true. I like this. Anyway, sorry to derail the conversation.
but like it it it's that kind of thing now, right? That like AWS is as fundamental a service to our online existence as power is. And when it goes

out, everyone just flips out, especially because weirdly um you can't in some cases contact people to let them know that you can't do the thing cuz AWS is out. Yeah. Like that's a whole thing, too. So uh yeah. Yeah, down detector's not going to do too good if you can't detect the down. That's right. Or you can't get to down detector, all of those things. But it it was pretty significant. Um the fact that it took down both Fortnite and Roblox is kind of massive. Uh those are the two biggest games. Not like two of the biggest games. It's Roblox and Fortnite. Like those are the biggest games. Yeah. Um And so if they're affected by this, it's safe to say that a lot of other people that aren't being reported on were affected by this, too. Um Yeah, it's uh it's kind of wild. So just you know, just a reminder that the we're all sort We're We're not in the age of the internet where things will continue to

function if stuff goes wrong. We're all like one bad DNS push away from not being able to do half the things that we do on the internet on the regular. And it's like a nice reminder of that, right? So like It's also a nice reminder to and even though it's going to be harder, I think, to do it, like to to not buy everything being like specifically things you need in your day-to-day. Like we had a conversation about ads being pushed to smart fridges, right? Like that's one thing, but if it's constantly to the internet and it can get like firmware updates or do something that's just asking for another point for it to break. Like and you know, you have these appliances that are so expensive that you kind of need to live uh making it so someone else can inadvertently or vertently That's not a word. Uh is it a word? Is vertently a word? I don't know. Chat's going to tell us here in a second. Uh but having another person that could be like, "Nah, don't work no more for good or ill" is bad. Uh Zogs, uh no, sadly, no sharks.

Uh I don't have a toy shark. We're talking about it that for next year. All right. Uh next up, we got some Switch 2 stuff to talk about real quick. They're sort of rapid fire. Um the Tarnished Edition of Elden Ring has officially been delayed to 2026, which should surprise nobody who tried it when it was in demos. Um it is not ready. I have walked by it at PAX West being played docked. And it seemed to be running fine. In an in an outdoor environment. Yeah. Not the Sorry. The The game The port of the game The player was outdoors. They were playing it The physical playing of the Switch 2 was indoors. Yeah. Um Protected from the elements. Um so yeah, that's officially been delayed till 2026. We'll see how that uh plays out. I'm hopeful that FromSoftware will be able to get things running. Like the Switch 2 is not an unpowerful system, right? It is just a case of

optimizing for very different hardware. Um Advertently as opposed to Okay, great. Excellent. Uh I am surprised Zoey will get anywhere near you dressed like that.
Do you want to come up? Keep going. What other things What other stories are happening in chat?
I'm just distracted by the attempt to get Zoey while dressed as a tornado. This is fascinating. Yeah. The uh Switch 2 port for um Assassin's Creed Shadows will also be, I believe
2026. December. No.
December? For real? December 2nd. They They They released on October 23rd that it will be coming out on December 2nd. I don't know enough about ports and porting, but the fact that Star Wars Outlaws did so well on its port, I wonder if like Ubisoft is just like kind of like knows how to do it well now. I think that that's likely. They're also

um reminder that one of the big obstacles was that Nintendo wasn't shipping dev kits. So like you could you could make a pretty educated guess based on the fact that Switch 1 stuff runs on the Switch 2, but you couldn't check. And you shouldn't release a product without checking. Yeah. Right? That seems ridiculous. So it could be that, it could be a lot of other things, but they are um They're They're moving forward. That's coming out December 2nd. And then lastly, but by no means least, Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition is coming to um the Switch 2 next year sometime. I don't believe we have an uh a specific date yet. It's funny, that one is like the least sort of technically impressive. I feel like Fallout 4 looks great. They just did it, you know, the new version to make it look even better, but like it's a pretty old game. Like they could probably get it running pretty pretty smoothly on there. So

Yeah. Uh and I think the we're seeing a lot more how Like as long as you optimize for it, the Switch 2 can do a lot, right? Which is what what people really wanted from it. Like I I've seen a lot of people pooh-poohing uh the Switch 2 and saying that it's like not as good as people are saying. I don't think it needs to be amazing. I just think it needs to be functional. I think I think uh it was able to land in a sweet spot of It's beyond functional functional. It's good. It's not the best and it still has technical limitations, but I think where it falls in the Venn diagram, like especially for especially for a place where ports are going to go. And I go back to the Cyberpunk 2077 port, which I am still incredibly impressed with, not only because they put the whole game on the actual cartridge. Thank you very much, CD Projekt Red. I know, for instance, the Tarnished Edition um is not going to be doing that um for Elden Ring, which is why I won't be buying it. Like I Like

there there are there are reasons in games that like I will get for almost like a preservation kind of thing, because like a cartridge, I feel like, even though they're tiny and can get lost and kind of taste like car batteries, uh is a bit more of a a uh a longer-term solution than a than a disc. Mhm. Um so like, for instance, like if I was, and I'm not a huge Assassin's Creed person, but like if I was Assassin's Creed person and I loved Shadows and they were going to put it on that card, that's how you kind of get someone to buy it either just there or twice. Uh I think if it's the the just the download, I don't There's no There's no real interest to me on that. And I know it's kind of a It's a It's a small thing, but I think in the in the world of these ports, if this sort of became the place where like, "No, no, you can just own the game. As long as your Switch 2 runs and you have this cartridge, you do not need an internet service provider to play this game. Yep. Right? Um Yeah.

I don't know. Uh I don't know, Fire Lord. I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to have time to do puns in this costume just due to the whirlwind of stories that we're dealing with today. So, you can you can kind of we'll kind of go with it. We should just probably move on to the next one before we get swept away. We've got updates on the situation with Twitch content. So, I've got some anecdotes that I have been hearing. I give some moderate amount of credibility to them. Largely that security was as bad as everyone thought. There were like knives floating around at TwitchCon, both knives that people could purchase from vendors and knives that came in through security. Also not great. Um but not really the the largest part of this story. Um the largest part is that Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch, owned up to the fact that they screwed up. Um which is if we're going to slam them when they don't own up to it, we should acknowledge. We don't need to praise. We

don't need to over kudos, right? But we should acknowledge when they say, "You know what? No, you're totally right. We goofed." Um and uh Dan is saying that, you know, he wants to take accountability for um the the the problems that happened in Emiru's meet and greet. Um that they will be re-looking at the way that they do meet and greets specifically, but how they'll be doing security in general. They're also looking into um how IRL streams happen and if they happen at TwitchCon, which is a big concern. Um they didn't or directly address this, but one of the things that's begun happening every year is that Kick streamers decide that they're going to crash TwitchCon and like get into altercations with people because Kick exists. Okay. So, you know how like Bizarro is like the opposite of Superman? Sure. That's Kick and Twitch at this point. Like Kick exists only to be a dark parody of Twitch. It has no

other purpose as far as I can discern or tell. It is simply there for people who got kicked out of Twitch or who don't like Twitch to make part of their content identity that they hate Twitch. So,
logo with a goatee on it?
Yeah, pretty much. Um ignore our goatees. We're definitely not evil. I I had to have one because tornadoes canonically have them. Yeah. That's correct. Yeah, absolutely. Um so, that whole thing is sort of a thing that we need to acknowledge is that Dan Clancy um and the Twitch team are saying like, "Yes, we absolutely hear you." They also did address that accessibility at TwitchCon sucked um and that they are going to be reviewing that as part of their comprehensive event review. I still think that I'm going to stand by what Matt's uh thought was last time, which is Twitch is running this event themselves. Don't do it. Don't do that. Don't do that. There are companies that

do that. Um also on a somewhat different note, uh Emiru has confirmed that she will be pressing charges as a result of uh her assault at TwitchCon. Good. I I would like to see more um firm action taken against people being terrible towards creators in public places instead of having it just be like a "Oh, that'll happen at conventions." which is kind of what happens with not this community, but like a large chunk of the of the populace is sort of a shrugging like, "Oh, that's just what happened No, that shouldn't be just what happens. Stop making excuses." No. Um so, that's that's kind of where we're at. Uh I am aware as well that there's been some other Emiru stuff, which has happened since we last talked about it. I don't think we have time or enough information to dive deeply into all of that. So, if you're about to type a comment later on YouTube and you're like, "But what about I know.

I don't think it's right for this episode. So, we'll deal with that later.
I don't even know what you're talking about.
Exactly. Uh cuz they didn't put it in the notes cuz I don't think it's important. Uh so, I'm getting ahead of the comments, Matt. It's my job is to get get ahead of the comments. Um before I mean, before they end up sweeping you off your feet, I think that's a really good uh that's a good idea, Will. So, that's our TwitchCon update. Yeah. All right. Next up, I'm so proud of this graph. It's very good. So, chat, you know how we've gotten like movies based on like famous video games, right? We had the Minecraft movie and the Mario movie. We have Sonic movie.
Three Sonic movies.
Three Sonic We had a movie about Tetris. That was cool. Until Dawn. Right. Yeah, right. We've got all of these movies. Well, Netflix has decided in their infinite wisdom

that they're going to go all in on much beloved famous Eurogame Catan and have both live-action and animated movies and or television shows regarding the IP for Settlers of Catan. That's the story I don't think we need to explain That's like the story? Like I Now, Netflix, I want to talk directly to you cuz I know that your entire uh concept team for new shows watches our show uh for such excellent um costuming and and commentary as we provide. Um Did you wear gloves? Or did you get splinters under your fingernails when you were like furiously scraping the bottom of the barrel? Okay. Bro. Bro, it's a Eurogame about resource management. Like

It sold 40 million copies.
Sure, but that doesn't mean that it makes a good animated TV It's great. It's a great game. There's nothing wrong with Catan. But like why are we making things that don't have anything to do with stories into like Are we Here Here's the question. Are you cuz I I'm not particularly excited for this by any means of the imagination, but I'm also not angry at it. Um I d- As the tornado here with with a with a with a calmer take than [laughter] Will's, uh look, uh every company has been gobbling up every silly IP that they think they can make something out of. Do I think this is going to add to the oeuvre of of Catan and like what it does? No. Do I think that maybe there's a possibility that they could make something accidentally really good with this? Yeah, I'll wait and see it and I'll trash it when it comes out if it's bad. Um I The thing that I found interesting about this story, which I believe Where did this one come to us from? This one came from

IGN. Thank you. Um is Netflix has the rights now to both an animated type series and a live-action series. Now, I don't think and maybe uh you know, I will I will spin around on this one when we get to it. Um I don't think they're going to make a narrative live-action Catan show. I think what they're going to do is build some sort of I don't know how you do this, but some sort of type of game show around Catan. That seems great.
In live-action. That's what I think that they will probably do. Whether or not that will be good or bad, you know, I don't know. Also, I I have I have I have I have found the new thing that I want. Mockingbird coming in with a banger. Would you be hyped if they made a Yu-Gi-Oh! style Uno show? Duh. Absolutely. That's the best idea I've seen. That's the best This game doesn't have a plot, but we're going to give it a plot like thing that I've seen. So, yes. No question. Absolutely.

I'll buy merch for it. Uh yes, 100%. Yeah. Right. I think Here's Here's another interesting thing about these stories. And uh studios movie studios, television studios, etc. have bought in silly off-brand IP since the beginning of IPs being sold. I think this might be why I'm just like, "Whatever." Um the fact that this is now like a story that we're talking about and like all this all this other thing, like it feels as though anytime a game does this as opposed to like a book, uh people sort of get a little bit more LIKE, "WHAT THE HELL?" about it, even though Look, I'm saying probably 80% going to be garbage, but I'll wait and call it garbage whenever or whatever it comes out. Like I I think that's my only point. Like Netflix has been buying up slurping up IP since it was able to. Um

and this is an IP that I like that also I'm not Actually, YOU KNOW WHAT? OOH, I THINK I nailed it, Will. This is an IP that I like that is not narrative or lore-driven. I like Catan. I like playing Catan. I like I I have a general like I smile inside when I think about it. Right? The They can't ruin The They They would be harder to ruin that than say, "Oh oh, Netflix bought Returnal." Yeah, cuz they're Yeah, right. Because the thing that they're going to make cannot be close to the core of what the thing is. It will inevitably be in its orbit. They're going to make a different thing. I It took me a minute to get why I didn't I wasn't spicy about this one, and I think that's what it is. Because there's no narrative to Catan that I am married to and if you're going to be making narrative shows based around it that I'd be mad. But this is, you know, like they're just they're adding another element onto it. Do I think it's lazy

and would I rather see like actual brand new IP and stories being told? Yes, absolutely. But that's also not how the industry works. Thus has said tornado. No, I think that's fair. All right.
And and and the industry keeps turning. Okay. Uh this is probably going to be Yeah, we can do this. We can do it. All right, this is our like first real giant big story. We've got we've had a lot of planted. We've had we've had a couple of like a little warm-ups. We've gotten we've got rolling. All right. Last week Valve released an update to Counter-Strike 2. Whatever version of Counter-Strike we're currently on, I can't even keep track anymore, Counter-Strike. And in it they they had a bunch of changes, some of which were good. Some of which were much anticipated and one of which no one saw coming and which is the the subject of our story, which is that. Valve introduced a new methodology by which you can trade five red items, the

tier directly below golds, which are knives and gloves, for a knife or a glove. So you can trade up five to one into a knife. Now, it's a little more specific than that even. The knife or gloves that you get, excuse me, will be from the series of one of the red items that you trade in. So if you trade five red items from the same series in, you are guaranteed to get a knife from that series. Now, people who have not delved deeply and looked into the abyss of horrors that is the CS knife market maybe wondering, "Well, why does this matter?" Well, dear viewer, you see prior to this occurrence, Counter-Strike's overall cosmetic market had a market cap of an estimated 6 to 7 billion US dollars.

What a bunch of hot wind. Because people spend entirely too much money on knives. It's also just to be clear, to be fair and balanced TM are copyright etc. That evaluation and buying and selling is also through crypto, mostly. Now, that does not mean that it could not be that money. So I'm going to also going to say that more importantly than the fact that it's through crypto is that it's all almost exclusively through third-party sites because um important note, you cannot sell an item worth you cannot perform a transaction on the marketplace for more than 1800 US dollars, nor can you carry a balance on Steam of more than 2000 US dollars. Uh and there are legal reasons for that.
yeah, you know, and I this isn't Valve

or this isn't Valve or Steam sort of facilitating this. I'm saying when we have when we throw around numbers and I think as corruption ramps up more openly, um we definitely can start seeing this more. This is like Money is an is a agreed-upon illusion that we've all said is real, so therefore we can run our society. Crypto triply so, right? Like it when we say like, "Oh, it this is a this is a market. There's a market cap of flabbity do billion." You're like, "Okay, cool." But like it's it's not it's not like I'm going to push back. I don't think that the crypto I don't think that the crypto connection matters. I think that the the knife market and the skin market is while it is currently using crypto to facilitate these transactions, it does have a strong basis in like the
amount that can be spent on them with this currency is incredibly is is is essentially tied more because

it's more fake than regular money to the crypto markets, which are also incredibly volatile. Like we we can say that the we can say that the value of this market cap for these literal video game skins is a bill 6 billion dollars, but it it's only that when it's up or down based on spending. Kind of. I would say that I would say that in my opinion, my understanding of the Counter-Strike skin market is that their value is not tied to crypto, merely the method of transaction is crypto at that moment. And I but I so yeah yes and I think the reason why the value is what it is is because of the massive volatility of crypto. Like I think you can kick it up to what is it 6.7 billion and now it's 4.7 or what was the what was the
Hold on, I can I can look it up.
the silly numbers?
Look at current market cap. Yeah. I think I think this is my point.

And Sidenal kind of hits it. We don't have to go back and forth because I'm not a I'm not a financial advisor or a or a crypto cryptologist. Like I just cut the word zoo out of that. I'm a simple tornado. Uh just really just just just trying to gust my way through this story. I think that The so the the the let's pretend for a moment that Let's pretend for a moment that it's all real.
[laughter]
The city of gold and yeah, okay, great. Excellent. Yeah. I think I think yeah, cryptonado, that's me. Um don't forget to buy my new currency. What would a What would a tornado's cryptocurrency be called? It would definitely take you for a ride. It's [clears throat] a litecoin cuz it blows away. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Uh a puff piece. Um the No, I I think what's interesting here, and I I hope, and again, who knows

why Valve did this and whatnot, I hope it is to kind of shake up the this industry a bit and get it a little bit more scared. Because I have a much more basic explanation. Oh yeah. Yeah, okay. So by the way, the current market cap according to Price Empire, and I use Price Empire for both um the pre the the I'm using the same source for numbers before and after to try and eliminate as much bias as possible. I'm using Price Empire, they're currently saying it's about 2.5 billion. Um so I think it's much simpler than that, Matt. Because you can't trade you can't spend money on these uh items inside Valve's um a system in a place where they can get transaction fees for these items unless you are willing to sell them for 1800 dollars or less.

They need to correct the market by lowering the value of these um uh prestige chase items, the gold items. They also want to increase circulation of items which previously had very little value, the red items, which went from a couple bucks to north of 50 dollars. Again, if Valve takes a 2 or 3% transaction fee on every item that moves through the market, that's a significant increase in revenue for um Counter-Strike, right? Because Counter-Strike only makes money off its cosmetics. Yeah, I think you're saying we're saying the same thing but for different reasons. Two things can be true at once. I absolutely believe that is the reason why that they are choosing to do this because but I also think that there is some internal um methodology in at Valve and and the way that this is sort of functioning that they don't they don't want to be in the business of larger form gambling. Now,

smaller form gambling up to their cap or whatever the limit the legal limit is, they seem to be fine with that, whatever. Because especially in today's day and age, if Valve wanted to have a heel turn and go full into like full crypto gambling, they are positioned to make the most money out of any other group doing it. And they're choosing they're actively choosing not to. So that I think it's twofold. I think one, they can move the market back into a space that they are comfortable with and that they can make more money off of, but also it deters sort of the the the element of this or the size of this industry that they do not want to be involved in. Yeah. And I and I would argue, especially where where it seems like most white-collar crime is basically legal now, like they're not doing they're not choosing not to get into that industry because of fear. Yeah. Like that I think that's my point. Like so I I absolutely agree that they are they are being smart about like, "Ah yes, we can also move this back into our wheelhouse and show them that it should

not be ballooned this high and they should do their transactions in our walled garden, essentially." And they have in the past um uh taken steps to make it harder to do third-party transactions, like the um some of the trade protections that have been put in place recently, specifically on Counter-Strike items, to help crack down on third-party gambling sites and to make it harder to do those things and to return transactions to the marketplace. This is just also this is another step in that. Now, someone asked um about TF2. Uh I want to call this out because this is a fascinating conversation point that I will attempt to make um uh nope uh this
But you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Um uh the big difference between Team Fortress 2 and uh Counter-Strike is that Team Fortress 2 is still denominating itself in keys

which is really an interesting way to do this. So, Counter-Strike moved to dollars into crypto as Matt pointed out in third-party TF2 has been using um buds and keys as in-game as in-game tradeable currency for a really long time which is sort of a fascinating way to do this without using like money in game to be the denomination. So, it does happen in TF2. There are um there are things that are like you know 2,000 keys and a key is $2.50. So, like you know there are things which would exceed the transaction cap, but there are also like because things have value that's denominated in tradeable items, it gets a much weirder. TF2 I think is actually a fantastic case study in player-generated economy and currency. Like if you ever wanted to do a piece on

in-gaming on a player-generated economy, look at Team Fortress 2. It is bananas and much weirder than Counter-Strike's. But like it does have some of these problems. Um There's also um There's also the question that someone brought up earlier which I keep going back to and it's and it's a terrifying one if I can find it. Where was it? Going to find it. Going to find the bump. Why are people paying so much for skins anyway? It's a great question. Uh essentially
Well, because there they are gambling with them. They are the only reason to buy one of these things at the prices that they are being sold at is you believe that the price of them due to their rarity will go up and you can sell them later. They're also prestige pieces for um and conspicuous consumption for some uh players who uh believe themselves to be on the rise,

pub stars, pros, and the like. Um knives and gloves are generally worth more not only because they are rare, but because they are always equipped unlike gun skins which in Counter-Strike you're not necessarily guaranteed to have. But those are not those all of those things are not what's holding up this and I use this lightly industry. Sure. Like yeah, those are there's always going to be high spenders or people in those spaces that want some the the the most expensive thing because it's the most expensive thing and they can afford it. That's not what's propping up this industry. No, but but it but that I'm trying to give a a complete answer that's not just like the skin gambling part of RC Fox's question, right? That there are that they are desirable for a number of reasons. But I would argue that the reason why they are priced so high is that market. Oh, yes. That the price is that high because the market exists even if people who are paying those prices aren't

necessarily intending to participate in that market, right? It's um it's magic cards, right? A a Mox is expensive because it is rare and it's powerful, but it also won't ever be reprinted. So, everyone that you buy is a gamble. Exactly. I'm just trying to keep the conversation grounded. That's right. You wouldn't want to have it lift off and fly away.
No. No. No, it could spin out of control. Yeah. Um So, I think this
Anyway, I HATE THIS.
[laughter]
I HATE I know just I hate I hate This is this is me completely uh my own personal opinions on this and I I again industry. Like I just I I hate it. I I hate that it exists. I don't particularly respect it. Um But however I'm not the arbiter.
[laughter]
Yeah. I I actually
tornado with a with one simple tornado

opinion. The the interesting thing that I'm I'm quite fascinated by is how Well, I guess it's just not as talked about cuz it's not as popular in the broader market. How Dota 2 has escaped this? I don't think it fully has. I think it it's been grazed by it, but like the three main games that Valve does this for, right? That have very similar um funding methods methods are TF2, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2. All twos because Valve can't count to three. Um and they've uh it is not entirely un-scathed by this I am sure, but like not to nearly this extent. Um although I suppose it is in part likely due to the fact that um you have individual hero cosmetics and there are hundreds heroes in Dota. So Your your knife and glove skin or whatever is a good analogy of why that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and yeah, I think I think there are a

lot of people who are very very excited to have the market correct in this way because it might mean that they actually get to get a cool thing that they want that's just a shiny thing cuz it helps them enjoy the game. Um and I think that that's the good upside of this. And and I hope you know what? I'll go even further. Hey Valve. Hey Valve. Do it again. You won't, cowards. Crash it all the way. Uh all the way. Well, to your point I think I think that's this is step one of a multi-step plan to get them back into the ecosystem where they could control it. If they did it all at once, they'd scare everyone off too quickly. Yeah. I think this and and and I think that um that's the probably the game plan. I think that's the I think the reason why this was just a small step um set is a thing that leads to your your reasoning more, Will, if that makes

sense. Yeah. Um Yeah, well we'll see how that goes. Uh okay. It is now the part of the show where we sell you fake things that you can't buy while Twitch chat gets ads for real things that they can buy. So, we're going to do a short ad break and then we'll be back with the rest of our stories right after that. Matt, are you ready to blow us away with your salesmanship? Yeah, I guess.
[clears throat]
Hey everyone. A tornado for extra credits here. Did you ever want someone to really give you like the best dance party of your entire life? Well, then have you considered hiring a tornado to be your DJ? That's right. I will just be spinning tracks all day long. It's uh like ooh actually, I have a track list. Hold on. I can get to it. I didn't even think of this when I did it cuz I wore this costume to a karaoke one night and then that way I started doing Hold on.

Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. We could listen to tracks such as Oh my god, it's going to it Where the heck is it? Oh, no. I blew it. I blew the whole thing. I blew it. I blew it. That might be one of my favorites. I'm just going to say. I just found it. Yeah, abso- Okay, good job. Good yeah, good job.
What is So, what is bro doing? What is bro doing? Great question. Next question. All right. Will, advertise your fake ad for a thing that no one can buy. Yeah. Hey chat. Tired for extra credits here. Uh to sell you the concept of go to sleep. Are you at work? That's cool. That's fine. You can do it right there. Are you driving? Probably don't do it, but like maybe pull off to like a gas station parking lot or something. Just just go to sleep. Just you're tired. I know. I'm tired, too. We're all tired together. Just What if we all just like agreed that this afternoon it was

socially acceptable to just find a place and take a nap? Consider just just doing that. Just find a place to go to sleep and just sleep. Sleep time. I'm back. Hey everyone. Tornado for extra credits again. If you do Pat Will's patented sales pitch of going to sleep, have you considered waking up somewhere else? That's right. You could use my patented service to just be somewhere else when you wake up. Could you be in Cleveland? Could you be in Detroit? Could you be in Oz? Well, don't go there again. I had a really okay time working on that movie. I don't want to get too much into it. The house was really nice. The monkeys were Dorothy Dorothy was fine. The witch was dope. By the way which brings me to the track list I was talking about before which was You spin me round, Winds of Change, Bohemian Rhapsody, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Blown Away, Riders on the Storm, Twist and Shout, and Ain't No Love in Oklahoma.

Oh, and Limp Bizkit's Break Stuff. That's the one that gets me. Okay.
[snorts]
All right. Yeah. You could This is a gaming talk show by the way. Yeah, right. This is This is If you're joining like right now, this is what happens when we have to run ads on Twitch to keep pre-rolls off because pre-rolls during talk shows are the absolute worst cuz people join in the middle of things and then they like make comments about stuff that you definitely didn't say or they feel like you did. Joining in the middle of conversations is bad. So, we just pause the conversation while pre-rolls are on. All right.
Yeah, if you were ever wondering why that guy this gag exists, that's the reason why this gag exists. Yep. All right. Cool. Great. Excellent. Awesome. So, that's our that's our story on the skin crash. Which is like snow crash, only way grosser. Next up.
[laughter]
Next up.
[clears throat]

I remember. Let's let's talk about Xbox. So So, we got three sort of lobes to this story, and they're all ridiculous. So, we're going to sort of tackle them one at a time. The first is brought to us by IGN. It's some comments that Xbox has made about their next generation of Xbox consoles. Because a reminder that the the most recent handheld, the ROG Ally the ROG Xbox Ally X is a thousand dollars for a thing which in most people's opinions does not significantly outperform the Steam Deck, which is half the cost. And so, Xbox has has gone on record to say that their their next thing will have quote next level performance,

cutting edge graphics, breakthrough gameplay, and unmatched compatibility. And that it will be a premium experience. And and I don't I don't like I'll just read another quote. The next gen console could be very premium, very high-end curated experience. You're starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld, the ROG Xbox Ally. But I don't want to give it all away. You're not giving anything away. You're charging a thousand dollars for a self-pour handheld. You're not giving anything away. Bro. Bro. What is bro even doing? Bro.
Bro's going premium. Yeah, right.
Like Tornado Tornado's going Hollywood. Xbox doesn't Listen, Xbox doesn't have time for all of us non-premium people and or weather phenomena. Come [snorts] on. This is not This is Right. So, so this is a good point.

Mockingbird brings up this is like their standard pitch for like No, not that. This. Chat's moving too fast today. Y'all got to slow down. The Yes, this is everything they promised. But now we have a hard fast example of what they mean right now. Right? If the ROG hadn't come out If the Ally hadn't come out, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But it did. And they seem pretty happy with it. And they're saying like look at this thing that's a thousand dollars. Look at this tornado. It's a thousand dollars. This tornado costs a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars, right? That's what we mean when we say that it's like premium. That's what That's what we mean when we say it's, you know, high-end. That this is the market that we're trying to break into. Right? Like but why though? Well, I mean there's a lot of different reasons. Also, I want to start with Michael's here real quick. A person who is an Xbox main from 2001 to 2015 only

feels sadness for the continued spiral. Also, thank you for the tornado joke baked into there. I I agree. I I feel I forget what years I was sort of an Xbox main. It was definitely through the 360. Sure. I had a 360. The the the classic Xbox and the 360 were were my jams. Even though you know, we've talked about the red ring. We know that they you know, there was there was There've always been problems. But like the ubiquity of how the 360 worked was was Yeah, so yeah, sorry.
[laughter]
Yes, it is I am a tornado. It's the Halloween episode. If you're tuning in right now. Will is Glenn Powell's character from the acclaimed film film Twisters. And I am the the aptly named Twister.
The eponymous Twister. Yeah. Yeah. Um But yeah, I So, the the way that I think

this is actually Okay, so we've seen Xbox is doing its little dance around like maybe not manufacturing as many consoles, causing places not selling too well cuz places like Costco are stopping to not selling them anymore. And then we've seen is this a Xbox or this is an Xbox, pardon me. They're not asking the question, they're making a statement. Is tornado an Xbox? Probably. Like, you know, is your PS Portal an Xbox? Well, kind of coming up with the next story. I just Yeah, like They've devalued their brand while raising the price on their brand. They've devalued their hardware. Yeah. Now, it's weird. You could say they've devalued their whole brand because of the way that um It is.
gamers TM tend to have like allegiances. Again, I am a self-proclaimed Sony pony. I understand this. I make no aspersions to it. Or away from it. Whatever way you don't want an aspersion to go. I don't do the opposite of whatever that wasn't. My

point is I smell toast. My [laughter] point No, that's the Xbox. Okay, great. My point is that um they seem to with the But like every every move they made is like oh, they just don't want to be in the hardware space anymore. They're partnering with other people to make handhelds. They're making game pass their main thing. They're not ramping up production of whatever. And they're talking about like oh, they'll still make a console, but like it's going to only be so the poorest can't have it. And like I I
they said. It is, right? Like they don't want to give it away. Like truly, they want you to spend a lot of money on it.
now? Um but the the idea But then the upping of Xbox game pass a hundred and fifty percent kind of like it feels like because of the next part of the story we're going to talk about. It feels like they are giving away the game too quickly because their corporate overlords have told them

you need to make this amount of money in this amount of time. And I actually don't think that the good ship Xbox is buoyant enough to actually do it. Because of the ground that both the Switch the PlayStation and PC has sort of taken from the the the gameplay space. Yeah. Let me This is a great point to bring to address this this question that Suhas has about why don't people just play PCs. Great question. Originally it was because it was much cheaper to buy a console and a TV than a PC, right? Thousand percent. Because consoles were lost leaders. The they the cost to purchase a console was never the cost to manufacture a console, and that was subsidized because the manufacturers were relying on making money back by selling you games. Right? So, that was the whole original deal. Now, it's that it's not People have fewer uses for PCs in a lot

of ways, right? Like they might have like a work laptop and a phone, but I I know plenty of people who don't engage with desktop PCs at all. But they'll play a console on a couch, right? The role of the console in the home and in culture is different. So, it could be hard for people who are sitting in the middle of like a solar panel array of monitors lit by, you know, key lights or who have been in the PC market for a long time. But there is like cultural There is a cultural spot for consoles, right? That spot is just decaying rapidly. As it becomes more and more expensive, and the argument that it's cheaper than buying a PC becomes less and less tenable, that's harder and harder to pitch, right? So, like trust me. As a PC person for forever, right? Who has occasionally dipped into consoles, I'm right there with you. But for a large group of people, this is how they see gaming, right? The average

player is a console player who buys one game a year. Yeah. That's the average gamer. And also like I would say if if I wasn't you know, streaming as much with Will here or you know, that sort of thing. Like the the only reason that I invested into a gaming PC cuz I've always been a console person. Not because I don't think that PCs are if you're doing it right and taking the time a better experience. It was because of the price point and how it was cheap enough. I got a I I switched off of Mac onto PC for my rig for and I bought like a beast of a rig years ago to do work, but also to stream. Yep. Because that's just where it is. Like it was funny. I was playing last night cuz I wanted some spooky stuff and I was resting after the the charity stream. I was playing Resident Evil 4 on PSVR 2. Dear god, what an awesome experience that is. But I was like man, it'd be so fun to stream this. God, that's a pain Like it's not a pain if you just want to link it to like a personal account that's not like whatever. But like to stream

the PSVR 2 console to our account is a huge pain in the butt.
Very hard. So, there's lots of like edge case weirdness, too. Like I feel like the ubiquity the PC offers also increases complexity. And sometimes people want the simplest thing to just play a game. That makes sense. I absolutely agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, hundred percent. Okay, so one of the reasons that one of the ways and the things that Xbox is doing in attempt to make more money is they're trying to save money on development costs um by using AI to help them write more code. Phil Spencer's very excited about this, you see. Phil Spencer just the most excited about this.
Well, that's not really the what I got from the story. Okay. What you get? Well, the story comes to us from Kotaku. It's Spencer Phil Spencer gave uh and maybe maybe he's given us maybe he's just you know psych cycloning around in

the truth. That didn't work out. I'll get back to it. Oh, by the way, uh arc I'm a tornado. Um it's Halloween. Uh close to it anyway. The the way that this story sort of goes is Microsoft as a company has said yes, everything's going to be AI now. We're going to develop all of our games and do all of the things. I forget exactly what they said was going to be their like their their whole landscape of like oh yes, these franchises will be powered by AI, blah blah blah blah blah. Phil has said something a little bit different. Uh cuz I think Phil is trying his best to weather a storm while a incredible uh amount of other things are just whipping around him. He's at the eye of the storm and he's just trying to keep again his ship afloat. He's basically saying that uh there's no mandate to use AI on Xbox as a property specifically.

What they're using it for is moderation and sort of back-end tools that he basically says not like I I he says um uh this is sort of part of his quote. On the production side, I think where a lot of people go, we don't have any goals in our model for that to happen. I think more about the pace of creativity, maybe the number of things we can try and take risks on before we decide on our next opportunity, but our AI today is much more operational than it is in the creative space. That is coming from Xbox the brand, but we have to also remember that Microsoft is dumping I see I
tornado sized amounts of money into AI. So, it's not like they're not going to do it.
Right. Like I I feel like that So, they talk a bit about how they're using it for moderation, which is reasonable as a first pass, right? It is

reasonable to use AI to scrape large amounts of data looking for patterns. Yeah, that's the thing that AI is good at. Yeah, that that that machine learning what we would call parts of AI, not generative AI, but an analytical AI machine learning is good at. It's very good at that. In fact, that's a good use case for that. But, it still needs a human intervention. So, like there's that bit. But, I I don't know. The whole like I felt like it Oh god, I felt like it was almost a dog whistle, right? That like it was like yes, it's a much more operational, right? That they're like writing code with it as opposed to like trying like they're trying to say like oh no, it's only in this part, not in the part that everyone's upset about. Like that was that way So, you think Phil is also trying to obfuscate and still use it. I took it as Phil is trying to obfuscate that the company wants to do it and is trying to knife knife's edge balance not pissing

them off, but also not pissing off every fan that Xbox has. Yeah. I I Yeah, I I I don't think again, I don't know Phil Spencer. I talk we talk about him so much on the show like he's a a bud. We you know, we have no connection to Phil whatsoever. I'm sure he's a very nice man, maybe. But, I don't think he he doesn't seem like the person that would be pushing this stuff. He seems like the person that is told to push this stuff. Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. Yeah, I
I I He's always the face of these stories. But, that's what his job is to be. Yeah. That's Yeah, yep yep yep yep. Uh and then lastly so, we know a little bit more about why now. Um why we have this absurd tilt from Xbox that they are

raising the price on the thing. Now, nah. Their initial reason when they did the US specific price raise was that it was due to macroeconomic conditions within the United States. Anytime anyone says macroeconomic conditions within the United States, they mean tariffs. Oh, you mean that thing Ronald Reagan didn't really like? Oh man, this just this [laughter] weekend has been nuts. Um so, that's what they mean. Whether or not we believe them, different story, but that's what they're saying, right? Okay. But, it looks like they may have given us more ammo to not believe them when they say that because um Microsoft's CFO Amy Hood um is uh apparently responsible for um asking Xbox to meet a quote accountability margin quote of 30%.

So, they want to make
I like making up numbers. Yeah, this is a very made up number. This is
46% of statistics are made up on the spot. Exactly. Um so, Jason Schreier broke this story uh with uh Dina Bass last week. Um and it is So, that they're asking for 30% profit essentially out of out of Xbox. Um That's not really possible. Yeah. It's not It's not just that like it's It's not like a lofty goal. It's a you made up that number and don't know how numbers work number. Like that is a big warning sign that Microsoft is going to try some wacky stuff if they think they're going to actually hit that number. Yeah. Medusa, you you

That's a good one. I like that.
That's great.
Right? Yeah. So, and I kind of agree with Enclave here, right? That it may just be that Microsoft is looking for an excuse to shut down Xbox, right? So, this is kind of like if you've ever been in a job If you've ever been in a job
Never never never done it. Right. Yeah, don't don't get it. Obviously, you can tell. Um this is our Monday morning. Um but
Yeah, who's in an office right now? Yeah, right? If you
that we're here for Yeah, right? This is okay. Um If if you've ever been in a job and they're trying to get rid of you, one of the ways that they'll do it is they will set uh performance goals for you which are unattainable and then use your inability to meet unattainable performance goals as a reason to degrade your performance review to say that you're no longer necessary and to get rid of you, right? That is a way that individuals in corporate jobs are disposed of. Right? And in the same way,

it is very easy to see how someone could say, oh we don't need that anymore. We're going to spend all the money that we were spending on Xbox on AI now because we don't believe that bubble's going to pop. But, that bubble's definitely going to pop. That bubble is going to pop and it's going to pop loudly and a bunch of people who were sailing along with their balloons in that bubble are just going to come crashing down. Um it's
It's great when there's six companies just buying and selling things to one another for not real money. Yeah. It'll go It'll go awesome. Um I don't know. I this All the the conjunction of all of these things plus our last story uh or our second to last story. Isn't our second to last story? Plus our second to last No, maybe it's our last story.
Last story. Um is all leading me to believe that they do want to exit the space. I think they don't want to deal with

I I don't think Microsoft wants to deal with hardware anymore. I think the Ally shows that. I think uh the everything points towards that with the exception of raising their price of Xbox Game Pass. But, I think that is in direct conjunction to this absurd edict from on high of this 30% profit. Yep. Um I'm curious it was something I haven't been able to find yet and maybe I'll just do more of digging. I haven't been able to find like the level of cancellations uh because of this price point increase.
Yeah. So, uh yeah. So, the math the math on this works out, right? Because anytime a company raises their prices, right? Anytime there is a piece of dark math which goes on, which is will we make more overall money doing this, which is if we double the price and fewer than half of our users leave, we will make

more money. Yeah, and because they will have to manage and and facilitate half of the customers or however many like less customers for the same amount of money. Yeah, you'll be able to cut customer support costs and yeah yeah yeah.
Yeah. Um Yeah, it's I just uh I don't know, man. Like Xbox it took a swan dive off a cliff this year and they're trying to aim it like a glass of water. Like I don't I don't know how they don't go splat here. I but I think isn't what isn't Don't we think that like Uh don't we think the splat is kind of the point? Like this feels like the Eric Andre meme, right? Where it's like Xbox gets shot on the chair and then Xbox turns to the to the uh the camera holding the gun and it's Microsoft and he says, "Who could have done this?" Right. Yeah, no, I think that's fair.

Like yeah, I think that that's yeah, I don't know. Uh the the way that um the way that Microsoft is behaving is that is the way that I behave when I want to leave a party. No, you're right. Hey, I got to be like Goodbye. Yeah, ridiculous time. I got to go. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we talk about the big story? The big story, the story on the thumbnail. Yeah, right. So um as a as part of their goal to make all of the money they've done something which 12-year-old me I don't think 12? I was older than that. No, I was like I was in my teens, right? Uh didn't think would ever happen. Uh which is welcome home Master Chief, you're where you've always belonged

on the PlayStation. It's crazy. It's crazy. I'm so old, this is crazy.
Right. So like how how many of you how many of you were around for the era of like console loyalty where like people weren't necessarily getting in knife fights in alleyways with box cutters, but like it was close for a bit, right? And like it was it was like part of your identity. You were like either with like Master Chief or you were with I don't know what the PlayStation
I don't know.
Yeah, Crash Bandicoot, right, whatever. But like Master Chief was like it. It was like the symbol of Xbox and like your Mountain Dew and your Doritos and your Master Chief were like that was the thing, right? That was like what it meant to be an Xbox gamer. This one? Yeah. This one as someone brought up Sonic on on Nintendo consoles, right? And like but this is the thing. So that was crazy. That was crazy. But it was but it was

but it was after the Dreamcast. if I'm remembering correctly, correct me when I'm wrong. It was after Sega exited the hardware space. Yep. Xbox has not said, in fact they've promised to give us quite the premium experience or at least the people that can afford it uh I hate the way they worded the entire thing. Um There's still Xboxes now. But now the the the mascot the mascot apparently [laughter] Yeah, the the Is this an Xbox? Yeah, right. We're smiling.
Yeah, um yeah. It this it this feels the biggest and the weirdest. Now, let's let's before I feel like we've been talking about the corporate side of this for a little bit. Let's let's talk uh let's get Hey, hey. Let's spin around and get a little bit serious for a second, okay? Let's talk about Halo Campaign Evolved, which is the name of this Unreal 5 remake. Is it Unreal 5?

That [clears throat] sounds right. I'll look that up. I don't want to be wrong about that. Um So and and I I do want to bring up if you're if you're confused about this, Microsoft owned Bungie then sold it, correct, but the Halo name stayed with 343 Industries who were Bungie's Microsoft-based partner when Bungie left. And then got bought by uh PlayStation and then is now getting reined in by PlayStation cuz they keep delivering subpar uh Destiny 2 expansions by most market standards. So they've kept control, right? Bungie wanted to leave and do something else, which is fair. I mean after four five 1 2 3 ODST and Reach were all Bungie first-party and four was the first 343. It was either four or five was the first 343 first-party.
Four was.
I think yeah, we think it was four. So there were five first-party Halo games

under Bungie and they wanted to do something different, right? Like They gave us Destiny, gave me three to four years of some of the best gaming of my life and now don't know what to do with it. Um Regardless, we're not talking about Destiny again this week. Um This is crazy. Now, let's before we get to Yeah, let's so let's let's This game will be uh cross-play uh across PC, Xbox and PlayStation. I might guess it will come to the Switch as well. By the way cross-play uh just the campaign or will they are they letting multiplayer happen?
So, here we go. So here's how this game is running. You can either play co-op two players uh um sitting on your couch or co-op four players over the internet. Please note the name of this remake. It is Halo Campaign Evolved, not Combat Evolved like it was when it was

released. There is no PvP multiplayer in this remake. I think that's actually really smart. Talk to me about that. Why why do we think it's really
is smart? Yeah. Because moderating Halo PvP is like an extra Like okay, so first off first off this is already going to be contentious and if they tell you what platform people are on, if you get in a lobby with like an Xbox logo and a PlayStation logo next to each other, there was like a non-zero a very non-zero chance they're just going to be slurs, right? Because it's
the the slurs are going to be there regardless.
Well, right. Okay, except if it's if it's uh PvE multiplayer, right? Then like that's lessened for this, right? And yes, there will be slurs regardless, it's Halo multiplayer, but um I think that also not maintaining that lets them lower operating costs, right? Because you can do a it's much lower lift

a lower lift. to do PvE multiplayer than it is to do PvP multiplayer. Your netcode can be different, your math can be different on how combat is balanced. You don't need to do ongoing support for things like combat balance patches, seasons, cosmetics, none of that. It's all baked into the game when you start, great. I think that's a smart move. Yeah. Well, I think uh also I did hear this that uh Mikhail did say multiplayer game in the works. They want to have Halo Infinite keep spinning and still making money. Yep, I mean that makes sense to they like there's no reason why they won't eventually just release like Also, if and this will do well in other places. There's no way in hell they don't release the Master Chief Collection uh or a version of it or something on PlayStation as well. Um there's no reason they don't release Infinite on the PlayStation as well. Like I you know, uh uh Medusa brought up this though, it also feels too late to matter I think Halo coming to PlayStation because it doesn't matter as much anymore. Um I think there is truth to that from

from a sh uh first-person shooters have evolved. Halo Infinite did not do what they wanted it to do. Um I think there was a secret not the 345 or 343 Studios didn't do well, but I think that there was a bit of Bungie magic that was lost when when they left the franchise. Um and you can kind of see that It's funny. You can kind of see where the skillset and passion is for Bungie in what works in Destiny and what doesn't work in Destiny. And you can kind of see that the story behind Halo is not buoyant enough to maintain outside of giving it like the best feeling first-person shooter that you could have. Again, Halo Combat Evolved when it came out was an absolute game-changer. Um for those of you who weren't around for it, it it it was Will and I even and I know that the Master Chief Collection is a slight remaster like better textures or

something it could render higher, but roughly it was the same. That game from a gameplay perspective still slaps today. Yep. You can throw I'm I'm truly convinced you could boot up an original Xbox with the big loaf of bread controller and sit down with a friend to play co-op Halo. Halo 3 LASO still stands up as a gaming challenge worth doing with three friends. LASO was legendary all skulls on. Um like Like it it the level of polish and and look, this is I'm I'm not just like completely glazing this thing entirely. It's it it There are there are problems. Is Silent Cartographer the level that they just keep reusing the same hallway like nine times? I think so, but they are redoing some amount of the campaign to fix some of the historical problems with it. Yeah. So like but then so this is my point a little bit here cuz I watched the trailer for this.

And it didn't feel special. And again, maybe it's because what is special is the feeling of playing Halo. Not the look of Halo. This looked better and newer and shinier and more Unreal 5-y, but I don't know. It didn't have like I Someone I'll be curious to see how it plays. Oh, library. Thank you, Ryan. I uh I saw I saw uh a Blue Sky post, which I feel like adequately described this for me. Which is that it feels like photorealistic Mario. Yeah. Like yes, you can do that, and yes, that is technically higher fidelity graphics, but I fear if you do that, you have missed the point. But it's possible It is possible to do that and still have the feeling. Correct, but
know that yet.

Right. And also, it it it it introduces a level of skepticism in whether or not the people who are doing it understand the point if that's how they're selling it, right? If they're selling it based on graphical fidelity instead of combat feel or gun play, then like do they really understand why it made a difference? Like okay, it kind of feels like the problem with Souls-like games, right? Like the problem with Souls-like games is that lots of Souls-like games or games that claim to be inspired by the combat and style of Dark Souls have completely missed what makes Dark Souls combat Dark Souls combat. Like an example might be yes, you have health flasks to heal. Does the boss ever have an opening that allows you to heal? No. Does it have parries or dodge rolls with eye frames? Also no. But it's a Souls-like game. You've missed the point. I feel like it's an exercise in missing the point when you're like, yes, look at how shiny our game is. We didn't care that Halo wasn't shiny. I mean like

it looked cool for its time, but For its time, it did look cool. Like
Sure, but But also, that's not why it stayed popular for years.
Okay. Do you remember Do Do you remember Red vs. Blue season 1 where they had to do like letterboxing to the ex- to an extreme that is absolutely unreasonable, and they couldn't get the reticle out of the middle of the shot? Like that's sort of what I mean, right? Is that like that was about the stupid story of Red vs. Blue, and not about like all of the the things that were around it, right? It was just a cool way to tell a story, and I feel like the charm of Halo in a lot of cases is it's a cool way to tell a story. I don't remember what Halo looked like. I just remember being tweaked out of my mind on caffeine in college and playing uh uh SWAT, right? Like and that feeling at least for me is what's important, right? That That it's not the it's like yeah, sure,

the graphics were cool and great and wonderful, but like Sheila! [screaming] Yeah. Right. That's for everyone who knows.
is a key, and when you put it in someone, it unlocks their death. A choopa thingy. How about that? Right. Thanks, sir.
God, I miss RvB. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers to Red vs. Blue, man. That That was the time to be alive. Yeah. I don't know. I I I just You know You know You know when PlayStation will catch me? Do you know when they'll catch me with this? When they re-released the best Halo game on PlayStation. Now, there's only one answer to what the best Halo game is. And if you disagree with me, wrong. You can fight me in the comments. That's Halo ODST. It's pretty great. ODST is the best Halo game because much like Star Wars is more interesting when you don't have Jedi, the Halo universe is much more interesting when you're not Master Chief. ODST is the best Halo

game. Re-release it. If you re-release ODST, I'll know that you're serious, and then I'll think about buying a PlayStation to replay it. Well, I know you won't. You can just play it on your computer. I said I'd think about it, not
Oh, okay. that I'd do it. I don't think about it, right? But like Yeah, honorable mention to Reach. I agree. Reach is lovely, too. Um I I I'm very curious to hear the reviews of this. And if people say it captures the gameplay magic that the original had, I will buy it. There There's a part of me It's the It's the bad lizard brained 14-year-old part of me that just wants to buy it cuz Master Chief's on Play- Station. And I think there's a lot of people that they're banking on that, too. Like which which does worry me about overall quality. Yeah, I think that Yeah, I think that like this headline is

what they want, right? And they don't actually care, right? Because at this point, there are three ways to play major uh triple-A game releases. Yeah. Right? PlayStation, Switch, too, and the PC. Yeah, there's there's no reason to own an Xbox.
An Xbox unless Unless you already own an Xbox.
know what this has huge energy? This has huge Twitch energy. Cuz Twitch, when they stopped doing VODs here on Twitch, they they had a they had a town hall meeting to to answer questions from streamers about it, and I watched that town hall meeting because it was relevant and important. And at the end of it, as they were rating out, there was a message from Twitch from the Twitch account in Twitch chat that said, "If you missed this broadcast, don't worry, it'll be up tomorrow on YouTube." This is the don't worry, it'll be up tomorrow on YouTube. Like you're doing that thing, and you just ceded all of

your brand equity in that space to another company for free. For you gave it away for free. Like I mean, kind of, right?
[laughter]
Yeah. Like Yeah, I don't know. It's funny. So So, this is true. Jimmy, what It's already on Steam. Why What brand equity?
We talked about this a little before, but like
Yeah. But like the the truth is like PlayStation's moving its stuff to PC. Uh p- uh Xbox already was moving its stuff to PC. You know what wasn't happening? Like PlayStation wasn't moving its stuff to Xbox. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, this is a data point that we keep coming back to, and I'll be very interested in revisiting it at some

point. PC gamers in particular overestimate the part of the market that PC gaming is. It really is. And there's a bunch of reasons for that. One of them is that you can walk into a store and walk out with a console, and it's harder to walk into a store and walk out with a functional PC for equivalent value, right?
Yeah, we we I I'm not saying that it's not an important thing, but for a very large chunk of the gaming space, it really matters. Yeah. Yeah. I I I do forget that a lot. The how with how many PC games we play and talk about on this show and this channel, like I but the the truth is the ubiquity of being able to walk into a big box store, which again, I don't ever go to anymore, and picking up a console and being able to play whatever's out. I go to Micro Center when I want to go to a big box store, and I walk out with all the components to build a new PC. Like And you are not the norm.
I am very not the norm,

Yeah. right? If you're If you're If you were someone who watches Twitch regularly, who engages in Twitch streams about your favorite games, who has a favorite like um like you're not average. By being here on a breakfast talk show where someone is dressed as a tomato and someone is dressed as a terrible cowboy talking about gaming news, you're already so much more invested You're You're You're the You're the top tier. Yes. You're the the cream of the crop. Right. You're already in like the top 10% of invested gamers. Ooh, yeah.
Macho Man Cloudy Savage, I guess. I got you for 3 minutes. Yeah. 3 minutes to spin you right round, baby, right round. Another good point. A typical parent gives a console
Yeah. as a Christmas gift, not a PC, right?
Yep. Because often times, the parents don't understand their PC. I saw someone bring up Linux vs. Windows earlier.

I I can't like I caution people to um pump the brakes on thinking that Linux will have a decent chunk of the market share until many more people are much more tech literate than they are, and the people who are worst at estimating what the average tech literacy of the population is are the people who are tech literate enough to use Linux or who are power users on Windows. As someone who's done tier 1 support, bro, right? All right. Do Do we need to uh Do Do Do we Do we have to do this story, Matt? We don't have to. I feel like we should show the picture if you don't want
I feel like we have I I feel like we have a moral obligation to bring this up because of how stupid it is.

But I don't
what? No. No. No. Let's not show the stupid picture. Let's We'll talk about it. The The White House uh posted an AI slot picture uh in response to GameStop announcing, due to Halo coming to the console, in a very poorly written post that the console wars were over and then the White House who I assume only understands GameStop through when it was when it was manipulating market prices. Literally posted a picture of of it said power to the players and it was Trump as Master Chief in front of an American flag that only had 40 stars. Again, not it's AI so doesn't you know whatever. And I'm just like how for for an administration that is do not get it twisted no pun intended or pun very much intended going to be coming for the video games when they need another

straw man to fight against. It's very silly to have this being posted. They get stupid. I think it's dumb. I think it's doing exactly what they want which is having us talk about it. But yeah, that's why it was quite It was dumb. Also just get the stars right. I I don't Don't worry about it. We don't get too political on this thing. It's just stupid. I would if that someone's fan base have accomplished right? You would think you could find a competent artist who'd be willing to stay up all night and do a stupid funny fan like post about it that would be real and have some authentic human creativity behind it instead of

crap. Right? Like I mean the president would say that that is not the case for this group of people. I mean that you're not wrong. But here's what I'll say like and I would have I would have kind of make it very clear here. I will even go beyond like partisan politics of this discussion. I think any administration doing if this was Biden or Bush or Obama or anybody in this it would be like it would be like it don't get me wrong. There's a million things going wrong that are bigger than this. But this is a real like How do you do fellow gamers? Yeah, it's very strange. Also unnecessary cuz there's so many other things going on but I guess the game plan is flood the field. Yeah, that yeah yeah yeah okay, this is this is the ninth war that he's because

I don't at least before this generation started. Yeah. Like the the the current generation the PS5 and the Xbox series X S that this generation not part of the wars at all. Like Xbox had already lost by the time this generation launched to be clear, right? They they won they lost when the PS5 launched with exclusives and the Xbox didn't. And it's arguable they lost the last generation too. Like here's the other thing. I there is a real world where if they were not given and we haven't seen the end of this yet so maybe I'm wrong here too but I'm just sort of like looking at what's been out and what's coming or what they're saying is coming. There's a real version of this where Xbox could be the dominant gaming company if that 30% profit thing wasn't there. If they wanted to get out of the hardware space, that's not intrinsically

bad. If they wanted to actually give Xbox Game Pass a chance and make it actually like every streaming service will be in shitified. There's no question. But they could slow roll it to make it profitable. That's not what they're allowed to do anymore. So they're seemingly acting like they want to get out of hardware or make like just like super boutique nonsense that's so expensive that the average person can't get it. But they I don't know like it feels like there are two parts of this giant behemoth that are not talking to one another and it's going to kind of eat its own tail. Um I just also I also just want to salute to Nintendo for winning as usual by doing nothing. Well yeah, they didn't they didn't like I think after Sega after they knocked Sega out they're like now we're our own thing. Yeah, by the way Kirby

Air Riders direct soon this week I believe or it was last week and I missed it in during prep but I'm Air Riders. There will be a day one Kirby Air Riders stream here. I will be throwing down with several of the mods in city trials because that is how people of culture settle their disagreements is in city trials obviously. I mean what's a tornado's favorite video game? Yeah. It was last week. Okay, cool. Great. Awesome. I have to catch it. Sorry. I missed so many things prepping for the charity stream last week. Yeah, we had a we had a big day Saturday. So I was I was a little unhinged. It's only partly because of that. It's also partly because Matt gets very into character when he gets on a costume.
[groaning]
Okay. All right, buddy. Uh

Hello. Yeah, thank you. Coming up this week we have all kinds of stuff for you here. There'll be a bunch of Final Fantasy Tactics here on the Twitch channel. We'll be back over on YouTube as well on Thursday with me and Jeff and another design club. We don't know what it's going to be on yet. I'm meeting with him tomorrow to talk about that. And then Matt and I will be here on Thursday as well. Please check all of that out. Um Um also if you'd like to get in touch with us if you're watching this over on Nebula. First of all, thank you so much for doing that as well. Second, you can check us out over at Blue Sky. I believe Will is pulling up our names right there. You can say hi, hello, follow us there, yell at us about things, tell us how handsome we look in tornado costumes, whatever you want to do. Um I think that's kind of that's that's [snorts] the best place to reach Will and I. Also if you're on YouTube, please leave a comment. What do you think about Master Chief coming to the PlayStation? What do you think about all of the Microsoft What do you think about all the stories we said today? Um and and remember use our comments as a as a space to say more. Sometimes

YouTube flags long comments so if it doesn't get like if you don't see it right away, I'm probably in there approving it because it just flags long comments cuz it thinks that they're a little unhinged. But I've seen some really great comments on Breakfast and on Design Club that have taken the time to say more about why they agree or disagree and elaborate with nuance and thank you. Thank you so much for doing that on the internet when everything is reduced down to 30 second sound bites. When you're like, no I actually have complicated feelings and I'm going to try and elucidate on all those complicated feelings about that thing. It makes me so happy. Triple points if you do it on this episode because of how we're dressed. But I guess that the only thing that that leaves us with Will is to have our patented our patented exit to the show that the the call to action that we want everyone to do and I know there's some new people in the audience today. Basically at the end of every show we do the same outro every time in order to foster a sense of

community and togetherness in in this trying time for all of the people who love video games so much. So that's kind of why we do what we do here. Um so and and it's it's funny that this this outro. It's so odd that we do it again every week when I'm not dressed as a tornado but it fits so perfectly for me being dressed as a tornado. So with that without further ado, let's say goodbye to the SHOW AND GOODBYE TO THIS FOREST.
[screaming]