Console Wars

0:01 Hey guys and welcome to plug in for Player 4, where you the viewer are the Player 4 And today I'm here with the boys again. Hi, we are the boys. I am the boys. Every, every fucking time I host an episode there's some kind of fuck. Shit, I'm sorry, Brandon, I can't let you do that.

0:30 There you have Ethan. I'm Mark. You already know who the fuck I am I guess. I mean, you introduced yourself, of course. Yeah, you did, of course. Yeah, yeah, short term memory losses a bitch. You know, now that I'm looking at that fan a little more closely, it kind of looks like something. Very phallic. Well, it's bladeless so. It's very phallic. It's not. Why are you bringing this up? Yeah. We're in the middle of recording. What's what's you're talking about? An Oval.

1:07 What is it like a fucking earlobe? Weird freak. See, you already fucking ruined it in the beginning, so I'm just going to ruin it. What the fuck you looking at? What are you looking at?

1:22 What are you looking at? Like that squeak?

1:26 Oh God, don't break. Oh Jesus Christ. God, we should get a squeak counter. Cherry squeak counter. So what have we been playing? Yeah, filthy. Animals more revolution idol.

1:44 It's a grind. What about you? I've been trying to get a little bit more variety and been getting some Stellarison. Been getting back into Destiny with you Emma and Jack and a little bit of wrist rain. That's a fun time. Yeah, it's a fun. Time I still need to get all the achievements. I think some of these are bastards. I think this weekend we're hoping to try out that Dune game. I'm not sure if Jack's still interested because of the PvP aspect, but I'm not sure. Oh yeah. Because it is free this weekend.

2:24 Yeah, it's. Free to play or free to keep? Free to play. Free It's a free to play weekend. Yeah, gotcha weekend. Just to give it a shot, just a little little try. Yeah, we've also had our nice adventures in Terraria. Oh yeah, I generally can't wait to play to our clamity with you. Now, now that you're actually starting to get the appeal of the game and understand how the game functions too, right? Yes, 'cause now you, now that you're starting to get that baseline, it's like, OK, you can kind of, well, definitely understand the basics.

2:53 Definitely. Have to start new characters like just to get a whole. Well, yeah, there's gonna be a whole new character. Yeah, unless you get to back back to calamity. Yeah, that that way you can have a fresh experience now with understanding what we're doing and how things are done. Yeah, 'cause I think that was kind of tripping me up. 'Cause we we were also going on a very fast pace for him. Too, we were. We we skipped. I mean, you guys can't help that because you've played it so much. Yeah, we, we literally brought you into the hard mode in like Night 2.

3:22 And like, I didn't even think about that too. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, like I said, you guys are so used to playing this yeah, that you know, I I just sometimes you get thrown into the deep end. I. Forget did you? Have an experience playing Terraria? No, you didn't. I have not really played them you. Threw them into calamity. But yeah, I like. I don't want to. I don't want. To say. I don't want to say I didn't have knowledge of the game, but. You weren't well in the know of how the mechanics of the game actually work.

3:51 And then and on top of that, being thrown into a mod that amplifies these things I lost. So that's why I wanted to at least do. Yeah. That makes sense. Like I honestly should have thought of that first. And I mean, and like I said, that's, that's fine. I don't that's I don't care. Like now ultimately wasn't my idea. And like, I'm, I'm excited now for it. I've actually had my time. Like, OK, this is how you craft things. You know, these are the builds that you can have for at least base Terraria, Yeah.

4:25 Like I'm I'm still curious what you're going to pick now that you know more about Terraria going into calamity. Like what? What Quick class 'cause you're right, now you're going melee and bass. Yeah, I really like Melee. Melee is a very satisfying 1. Yeah. I I do melee. I just know that I like my summer class. Yeah, I know you like the summer. I like to stand around. Like I, I obviously help with the whips, but I'm just like, I like to stand around or just, you know, be able to do shit. Yeah, like just mundane things and just walk around and mine or whatever.

4:56 And just like, oh, there's an enemy that's dead that I didn't know about, but now I don't have to worry about. Cool. Well, like playing Summoner for my first time without really knowing what I'm doing. I do like it 'cause it does kind of remind me of Vampire Survivors. And then we'll say I was rushing that too. You're alright. Well, you. Don't have to worry about a Nintendo patent. You know, you're right. Jesus, at the time of recording Nintendo just patent the ability to summon an enemy and then have that or summon a character that automatically flights enemies for you.

5:40 Yeah, it's it's. Things are really weird in the gaming world, but as if we. But as my brother has said to me, 'cause I so when I say he doesn't care, doesn't mean, you know, he's completely brushing it, but he just, he in his mind like it's whatever the shit's happening, what can you do about it? I mean, I'm like under the influence. Like if, like the more people that can just like, avoid Nintendo products, the better. And sadly, my brother's the same way. He's like, well, why should I, you know, make myself miserable by stop playing the games that I love?

6:24 I'm like, there's other things out there like. Yeah, there's other things and that's perfectly fine. I I, I think that really just throws people into a between a rock and a hard place because you know, you have you have the games that you love, but at the same time the company is doing really shit things. So what do you do? Do you do you do what you believe is right or do you do you continue to enjoy yourself 'cause you know thing that things are kind of shit right now and. Everybody's got their opinion with it and that's.

6:56 Fine. I mean, like my opinion is like, I just don't see anything changing unless people like actively vote. Vote with their vote, with their wallet, not their mouth. Yeah, yeah. And like, there are going to be people that are in the same vein as you that they're not going to until things change. That's it. And then even then, like I also don't really have much care for Nintendo, not because I don't hate them, just because I mainly play on my PC. You. Know I don't really like I I've stopped playing Xbox since I got my PC yeah I played my switch more than what before I like you know as when I was out and about but like before I had my PC yeah once I got my PC kind of every other console just.

7:41 And that's kind of how it's been with me. Like I'll occasionally like, play some stuff on my PlayStation or my Xbox, right? But yeah, no, I, I, I get that. That's fair. There's just so many games in one spot, it's hard to go somewhere else. Yes, it is. Like I've I've and I keep telling myself sorry and the, the yeah. No, no, no, you're right. But like, I have Donkey Kong 64 literally right here, right in front of me. Yeah, I've been meaning to play this for like a month now. Yeah. And I'm just like butt computer.

8:10 Butt Computer. I love my pewter. All my friends are on it. Exactly, Yeah. No. And that's. That's perfectly fine. Yeah. Like there's just there's things that are going on that suck right now. And you and I just hope for the best. Yeah. I mean, like you, you don't stress yourself out about it, right? Because you stressing yourself ain't going to change anything. No. And they're going to continue to be the way that they want. I'm like, I'm not going to hate anybody who's like, I'm, I'm going to play whatever I want.

8:41 Like, fine, sure, fella. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to make more people aware about it is all. Yeah, there there are issues that could become bigger issues than the line. It's just this is what's coming out of the pipeline. It's kind of good to be aware of. And it's good to this. Is also happening. It's good to talk about it because you, one, you can get it out there and two, it doesn't get just brushed under the rug. Yeah, right. And I do want to say this does sound contradictory. I mean, he's like talking about like how I want to play Donkey Kong 64, but like, that's a game that's so far removed from Nintendo's money.

9:15 From modern Nintendo. Yes. Like they're not getting any money from that, so there's no point, no. But that's, like I said, it's just one of those things that don't stress yourself over, do whatever you want, right? And this goes for the people listening. But just just be aware that these things are actually happening. Yeah, just know that this is what's going on. But this is not us telling you to stop playing everything Nintendo. No, do what makes you happy, because that's what fucking matters. Right, but be aware that there's shitty stuff going on even with.

9:47 Yeah, just be aware of what's going on. And that's really it. That's not much you can do. Anyways, let's steer us back into the conversation. What's your topic for us today, Brandon? Well. Go on, Brandon. God, this is. Brandon, it's all right. You. You. You what, Brandon? Go on well. The same waiting shut. Up don't you blink at me, freaky fucker. So we're are. You a frog blink just.

10:20 Jesus Christ. You make me very uncomfortable. So wait. Oh, go on. I'm going to throw that beer at you. Oh, OK. You like that bitterness? Didn't I tell you how you do? So it's console wars, that's what we're. Talking Oh God, it's just bad.

10:41 What? Oh God, it's just as bad, yeah. So this is not, this is just a topic on. Right, this is overall. How we feel about it, because now to kind of throw in my kind of one of my points to kind of get us going about that with seeing Hell Divers release on Xbox and Gears of War on PlayStation, this is shit I didn't think I'd ever see. Yeah, really, two separate companies IPS on each other's consoles is fucking crazy. And that just kind of tells me like the console war shit's kind of. Well, here's kind of cool.

11:27 Here's two ways to think about it. The first way is, you know, back in the day, you know, like it was Nintendo versus Sega. It was like early, early Microsoft. Versus Atari versus Namco, what was it? What was it? Atari versus Namco or something? Was the name was Bandai even making consoles at that point? I mean they made plug and plays, but I don't think they made a. Consoles, but they were not. That's going back to the point of when our our parents were kids, so we wouldn't really. But yeah, but going back though, like it was like Sega versus Nintendo.

12:05 I'm like Sega does with Nintendo and like that kind of shit. Well, like it's from from this first perspective. It like way back when it was needed, it was, you know, advertisement. It was like, you know, this is when game gaming was first gaining popularity, and yeah, the Internet isn't what it was then. There was no established, no upper dog. You you found shit through word of mouth? Yeah, word of mouth, having a game guide or it being in the pamphlet that you get. In the case all good old magazines, Nintendo Power.

12:40 Oh yeah, Nintendo Power forgot about that too. Yeah. Or even then, whatever was in your local arcade if you go back far enough. Yep. But now the nowadays is that there really isn't a console war, No. And the only console war is that people, stupid people arguing online, Yeah. That's pretty much. Microsoft, Nintendo, it's like, shut up. They all have their own role in the place right now. They all have their own role. It's just interesting to me to see that these games are now going off of their original console and going to its competitor, right That that is, that is honestly pretty cool.

13:19 And that's why I said I think this is where it's probably finally going to die off. That's not to say there still won't be competition. No, there will need competition. Yes, there will still be competition. In order for games to stay. Relevant and stay, yeah. They keep keep the other companies in check. Yes, but I just, I, I like seeing this. I didn't think I'd ever see Gears of War on a PlayStation. What the fuck? Yeah, you know, but it's nice. Again, what you said, it's all about the entertainment.

13:49 Yeah, that's literally at the end of the day, it doesn't fucking matter what console you're on. And that's why I'm here, to have fun. That's kind of why I hate Sony's exclusivities. Yep. Blake, I play on PCI own an Xbox. I don't have a PlayStation. Yep, a modern one, yeah, I can't play. Not body by land. What's this? Horizon 0 down. No Astrobot. Astrobot, yeah. I wanna play that game so bad but I can't cuz I'm not gonna spend $500 on a console and $60.00 on a game just to play it plus online if I need it.

14:22 Yeah. And I'm hoping at some point, Sony, since they've been put in the like, Spider Man games on Steam, yeah, that they'll eventually put Astrobot. I think it's like an I think it's like a year exclusivity, unless the game is just that popular, yeah, or they expect it to be that popular. It should probably be on Steam if I had to assume sometime next year. I. Don't doubt it. But it's definitely a game that the way the way you play it, like the best experience is with a dual sense controller, which is the PS-5 controller, right?

15:02 Because of the heptic feedback, the way the triggers work, it really immerses you. So if it does ever come out on Steam and it should, hopefully you should be able to have the heptic feedback stuff supported. You just have to have the controller plugged in with USB. It's not Bluetooth. OK, if that does happen, I can always lend you a PS-5 controller for the full experience because it really makes a difference, believe me. Right. But this is like kind of going back to my point about console wars.

15:38 Is that like the exclusivities? Yep. Like spider Man, Hogwarts, all this. I think Hogwarts was expensive. No, Hogwarts was an exclusive. No, that's awesome. Yeah, they're actually porting it over to Switch, which. But yeah, there was I'm. Honestly shocked that they are. But just like all these exclusivities that like Sony is just pumping out and what's Xbox doing? Nothing. Me, unfortunately, yeah. And it's like, why not just, you know, put these on Xbox for all the Xbox people play put this on steam for all the PCI mean now kind of switches in the game too.

16:09 When I put those on switch, which is why not why not make games available for everyone? Like that's kind of where like the the console warriors like nowadays arguments lie is like, well, when Nintendo, sorry Xbox does nothing with their games. They just it's a graveyard. It's what people it's. What people describe and then Sony is like, yeah, this is where it's at because all these really good games, all these really good exclusives in like just all this innovation. Yes. Now I will throw. Nintendo does their own thing.

16:43 Yeah, yeah. But what's interesting, I, I will throw in with Nintendo in specific because funny enough today when I woke up, there was a, there's a new trailer for Residual 9 and it showed way more of the game. And funny enough, that's going on the Switch too. And it's not A and from what I gather it is not a cloud based game. It is on the Switch too. And not just that, but there was some. I think they're putting RE 7:00 and 8:00 as well on the Switch too. Well, you can see Lady Demiscus in all of her 8.

17:25 Polygons that like now I like seeing that right, you know? Yeah, for like Nintendo's sake too, because they've always, for a long time, they've always been very picky with third party games. They've always been that way. And now they're kind of branching out, which is nice to see. But again, with everything that has been said, they have some shit they need to figure out. Yes they do. But I like to see what I'm seeing right now. It's cool and again, hopefully things change, but that's where I wanted to start us off at and but who wants to go?

18:17 I've kind of said a lot of things, so I guess my. Turn, I guess, looking back at the Consul Wars, it's a very complicated sort of situation. So you you have a lot of bad things that you can reflect upon that say, oh, things are better now. But I kind of want to make a point that things were also good back in the console wars that we're kind of seeing fade away. And one of the particularly one of those things are the consoles and the competition. So the the with the during all the console wars, a lot of what you would see the larger companies do.

19:06 So not the developers, but Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo themselves doing would be pushing much more advanced hardware into their devices. And you know, you would always look to the next console release and sure enough, it would have the latest and greatest of tech. It kept on pushing the boundaries and really gave us a, a sense of it's driving a lot of consumer tech by having such a high demand for higher capacity storage, faster RAM, faster chipsets, and it, it really kept churning a lot of consumer tech.

19:56 And well, unfortunately, that kind of got slashed during the the COVID-19 pandemic with the supply chain crises and then just the general craziness that has been happening for the past five years with just the geopolitics and the supply chains getting fucking naked. From either like the Ever Given or the war in Israel, Gaza with the Houthis coming in, just the supply chains have not been what they were in the twenty 10's and 2000s. And predictably, we're starting to see the major players kind of trying to bow out of hardware.

20:45 Yeah. I mean, we, there's so much talk about wondering if Microsoft is even going to stay in the hardware game at this point, which means that we're going to, without the competition, we won't see as much push for development in hardware tech, which means we're probably going to see a lot of so, so we'll still get newer consoles, but it the differences in performance and actual capabilities between the next coming generations. If we don't have that competition is just going to see stagnation and just more and more of the same.

21:30 Why do we need to keep pushing hardware if this is as far as we're really going to be willing to go? Unfortunately, yeah, because we are kind of hitting or we're coming up to that basically brick wall of how far can we go pass this. Cause The thing is though, at this point consoles are like semi portable computer, yeah. Pretty much they're they're basically just a. Computer. I'd argue it's. It's a very specialized computer to do a very specific task. Of course. But. Still, it's basically just like a, a budget computer build.

22:10 Yeah, you know, it's, you know, optimized for its own thing, but also like, at what point do you just say fucking getting your own PC? Like because these consoles, like I don't think either company are making money off their consoles, not. So much anymore. I mean, I mean more so the games, the subscriptions. Look at the PS-5 Pro edition where you have to buy the plastic stand and the disk drive separately. It's just. Oh yeah, yeah. It doesn't feel like they're making money off of this anymore like you said.

22:44 And like, I'm sorry, but like in terms of console wars, the there's only one time Xbox One and that was the 360. Yeah. So. Yeah, they dropped. At what point? At this point, Like if they've only had one win of them built on with four consoles compared to five consoles on the other side. And it's like, when, again, if we're just talking strictly Microsoft versus Sony, not including Nintendo, but like, what? At what point do you just throw in a towel and try something different? The thing is, I think it in my opinion, I think if they stopped making consoles, that's I want to say it would be the death of Xbox.

23:22 It would it? Would it it? Would be bad because that's how it started. It didn't. It started as a. It was a console. It was not a cloud based thing. I get it that things need to move forward but if you are going to get rid of the sole purpose of why that this was even started in the 1st place then you lost your identity. I I don't like I don't see them like them stop making consoles. But if they do, then that's it for me. I mean, they're going really hard in on digital everything which. And which is sad, yeah.

24:06 Cuz we, we, we've seen the problems with all the streaming bullshit going on right now. It's got its own problems, but that that's a topic for another day. But. Yeah, it's a topic in a bit so. It it's just you're, you're losing, like you said, your sense of identity as a company and your own culture that you've built up over decades is withering away because you're just no longer interested in keeping up the pursuit of it. I mean, here's here's my thing though, kind of pertaining to console wars, like what you said, Brandon identity after the 360 and PS3 era, I think both consoles just lost their identity because of how advanced they got.

24:53 Like there was if if you could just take one game like from the Xbox One and put it on the Xbox, sorry, on the PS4. What's the difference Now if you took a 360 game and put it on the PS3? Big difference. There was. Yeah, and like at this point, I just don't see a reason for a console war. I guess that's my stance this episode because I just don't see one because whether you have a PlayStation or an Xbox or APC, it's all the same. Yeah, you're literally you're the end goal is the same like, you know.

25:32 It's not about, like, getting people hyped up for a game that's like, you know, for example, like Mario Bro, like the like Mario Bros Three, like there was advertisements everywhere for Mario Bros 3 in the US. Yeah, yeah. Compared to whatever Nintendo is doing at the time or no, sorry, whatever. I don't think Sega was in the game at that time, were they? What era is this? This is like, let's see Super Mario 3. I think that was NES, NES, NES. Yeah, Sega was so. Yeah, they were so. OK, yeah, compared to what Sega was doing.

26:08 But then like, yeah, you had Microsoft and I don't know, it's just other than Nintendo, I don't think there's identity. And I think that's also what really helps console wars as well. Like like the more playful the side of console wars, not the well your console sucks argumentative back and forth, whatever, stupid. People's mind, that's something that kind of got really bad during the console wars, was just the tribalism. Yeah, really. It's like they both do the same exact fucking thing. There is no fucking difference.

26:42 All it comes down to really controller preference. Yes. That's really. Like that's about it. And even that now doesn't. I mean, they're, they're getting so ergonomic that there's that even the controllers are kind of starting to lose their identity as well. That could be an episode as controller shapes over the years. That'd be interesting. Like with see what what really I think did it from Microsoft is when they botched the Xbox One. Reveal so it. Always has to be online. Your console has to be able to ping the servers every.

27:20 I think it's like 48 hours or some shit before whatever it was and it's like. I forgot about that actually. Really think that's a good idea, Yeah. I think would also really sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Also pushing it as a fucking Media Center. Yeah, Oh my God, you're right. That all they talked about was TV, TV, TV, TV, one game, TV, TV. It's like, yeah. What the fuck not? The purpose of what you wanted the console for? It's fucking. Gaming. Console. If you wanted the TV then just turn on your damn TV system.

27:57 It's not yeah, it it it's not like an ET and TU verse where you can just stream all your channels to it. That that in itself was a highly specialized device specifically for that. And I also will have huge beef with the fucking operating system. When that thing came out, that OS was shit. You know why? Windows 8. Yeah, it's. That fucking UI sucked. I forgot I ran on Windows 8. Oh my God, it was slow. Also the UI was dog shit unreleased. Like they changed the UI every fucking week for like 6 months.

28:38 That's. What happens when you try to make an operating system that runs on PC and the Surface and your phone and your Xbox? Yeah, at some point you need something specialized and the Jack of all trades thing that they tried to do just. Didn't work. It it could not work because you'll be a Jack of all trades but a master of nothing. I had a thought here but it's gone. Shit. Too bad, yeah. No, it'll come. Back, never to return, Yeah. It'll come back. But I, I think another good thing that kind of gets lost, I personally think that a big thing that we're starting to miss from such the competition of the console wars was the, the price of the games.

29:27 Because you had the big three companies in constant competition of with one another. They would be so competitive that they would try to keep costs at as low as they possibly could. Because then it'll be like, well, people are aren't going to be bitching so much about like an $80 game. And now that we're starting to see while all these companies, they can virtually play the same game as long as they have, as long as they have the right license key to have the right version of the game. Their servers are interconnected.

30:02 So you don't have to worry about your friends being on the wrong console. You can just all play together and essentially it removes all incentive for the companies to keep the game's price low. And like at this point, minus maybe Sony, every game is cross-platform. Yeah, every fucking game. Like nowadays. Yeah, which that's something I like to touch on as well. I think that was a great thing to happen. Well, of course. As a consumer and for just having social interaction with the people, absolutely.

30:44 Like it was, I know for years companies have said you can't do it, can't be done, can't be done. It's like it can be done. You're just. Yeah, you don't want to do it. Yeah, right. It's not you're lazy, it's you don't want to risk losing your consumer base. Yeah, which have, since this has been going on for a little while, it doesn't seem like that has happened, you know, like things have been. I mean, there's, you know, there's things that can be wrong with this. It can be annoying, you know, if you're a console gamer and then you're like playing Call of Duty or something and you're paired up with PC players.

31:19 Yeah. But that's as an easy fix of just turning off cross play. Well that also has its own problems of you can't be like put on people that have or you can't be part put into games with people that have cross play on, even if they're on the same console. Yeah, and very few people do that. They get matched up with the same people all the time and that that's it's own issue. It's own issue, yeah. It's not perfect, yeah, But I'm happy that it's been implemented in some kind of way, and it's been, for the most part, fine.

31:48 Right, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just feel like a lot of things should have it turned off by default, but not on. If you want to turn it on and be like, hey, I want to like play against PC players, yeah, yes. Or I just want to play with my friends, sure, go on. But I always say have it off by default, yeah. See, I'm, I'm kind of used to like if you're doing competitive stuff, like I said, Call of Duty when I was playing it, even though I played on PCI, played with a controller because I'm, I'm not bad with first person shooters with a mouse and keyboard, but there are people way better than me.

32:19 It's just your preference. Yeah, it's a preference. It's a preference. A. Controller then that's what. You're gonna be used to, yeah, but I was always better with a controller and I have held my own with it, even though a mouse and keyboard is in a lot of ways superior over that with kind of like competitive games. Yeah, well, that's the thing though. Like if we're getting that, then we're gonna have to look at like for example, Apex Legends. I mean, I know this the most of Apex Legends is that all the competitive players use controllers over keep over a PC.

32:55 I think it's because something about the aim assist. I. Think because there's there's no aim assist on the computer on on mouse. It's point and click, whereas with the controller you have to aim and then you'll have. You'll have. Help. You'll have some help because you'll have the the the firing cones. And I think it might be the same in like something else, maybe Call of Duty, I can't remember. I think Call of Duty has it too, yeah. I'm just saying in the competitive scene is what I'm talking. About maybe it was.

33:21 Overwatch maybe I couldn't, I can't remember. It was some shooter again, just like Apex and it was the same thing. People were just using controllers. Yeah, I think Call of Duty, don't quote me on this, but I think when you're using a controller and this is like just casual, not competitive, I think aim assist is disabled because quote him, quote him. I think, I swear when I was playing like one of the newer Call of Duties, I did not have aim assist. And I think that's because it's, I guess not fair to like people with keyboard and mouse.

34:05 I'm like, does it really matter that much? Yeah, yeah, they're faster than I am. I'm technically at a disadvantage. But I mean, like I said, don't quote me. I think I think it was like that, but I I'm I can't exactly. Remember. Yeah, well, getting back to my point, if you if you and your friends, no, no matter what console you're playing is if you can play the same game, there's no incentive for these companies to keep the price down anymore. So now they're going to be going to the actual developer and say, hey, let's raise the prices so that way everybody's making more money.

34:44 And we'll say, oh, it's for keeping the games at a price that's relevant for today's economy. And I, I just, I understand that that's part of it. But over the past couple years, we've seen games hike up from $60 to $70.00 to $90.00. People are estimating that GTA is going to set that $100 price point and it feel it just seems like that that this is much more of a likely reason why these companies are doing it. Because there is no more of an incentive to keep the prices low in order to retain your player base now that your game can be played anywhere.

35:33 I mean, in, in this sense, it's kind of like company's fault, but it's also the player's fault that, you know, just innovation quote UN quote is graphics innovation is how pretty, some how pretty something looks. And that alone increases the size of games, and that alone increases production times of games. Well, that that that in itself is more the fold of the of the studio pushing that sort of agenda and that sort of push into into graphical technology. That's not so much the fault of the player.

36:10 But but no. But there's a bunch of people that just like, well, this game looks really pretty. That's where you play it. Like for example, for example, Forza, people look at all those pristine cars, 4K16K3, whatever. It's like yes, kind of or mostly the studios, but kind of the players just for you know, like also being like, yes, we want more pretty things, but that's all that. That's also like, now the games are getting bigger, they're taking longer to make, and so now the prices have to go up because of it.

36:45 Yeah, because. Unless the. Production because games can't come out like every 5-6 months like they used to compared to like if if we compare prices, yeah. For making a game, yeah. Well, that leads into another point that I had written down is that these the traditional business structure of these companies is just no longer sustainable. It's really not because over the over the past two years, we've seen so many people getting cut from these larger gaming companies. I mean Xbox dropped what was it, 9000 employees?

37:20 Sorry, Chair counter. We're going to have to do a fucking chair counter, man. This is fucking chair. It's comfortable, but fucking damn, Sounds like I'm stepping on a mouse. Continue. But yeah, wasn't it that Microsoft dropped 9000 employees through its gaming division just a couple months ago? If I remember correctly, I. I think they didn't like 9000 and then another group of like 3000 or something like that. Yeah, so I'm trying to remember Patrick. When I brought this up to him, I swear he said that was Microsoft wide.

37:52 It wasn't just the Xbox division. But a large portion of it was Xbox. I remember. Yeah, and that's why Perfect Dark got the cut. Like it? It feels, it feels like these companies are desperately trying to maintain these outdated structures and like you said, they're jumping so much money into into high fidelity, high technical looking games and into just chasing trends that it's just no longer working. Yeah, and it's like graphics and all is nice, all right? It's pretty whatever. But it's like if the game, like, The thing is, with a lot of these games nowadays, you're watching cutscene after cutscene after cutscene after cutscene.

38:44 I might do some game, you know, gameplay here, cutscene. It's like, if I'm gonna do this, I'll just watch a fucking movie. Yeah. Like if I want real life, I'll go outside and touch grass. That was the whole idea was the push towards your game is actually cinematic experience. Which is fine. It's fine in certain circumstances. But it's like I want to play the fucking. Game something. Something Hideo Kijima something. His games are a different breed. It games, it's game. You're basically a mailman, but but his his games are a different thing.

39:19 Yeah. I mean, that goes into the identity of those games though. Yes, just so many fucking cutscenes. Yes, I think he broke the record of cutscenes. Longest cutscene, right? It's something like that, yeah. Like I I said, I don't hate cutscenes. I don't mind it, you know, when it's a game that I really like, like I've been excited for, I might sit through some of the cutscenes, you know, and whatnot. Like what I thought was kind of cool going back to RE-9 for a minute. Capcom, their transition from a cutscene to gameplay, you couldn't fucking tell a difference.

40:01 Dude, there have been very few games. I can't. I there's there. I know I've played a game that's like that where I'm just like, Oh my God, I'm into the game now. Yeah, like I pick up the like I was like, oh, nothing's happening. Oh shit. I can't pick up the controller. I can't think of any. Maybe Mafia or something, I can't remember. I love how they I. Remember watching somebody at like a games con, and I think it was for Uncharted 4 where that happened to them and they're just playing the game, they're watching the cutscene and they're like, oh, I actually have to physically move through the crowd because it's cutscene up until you see them enter the crowd, right?

40:39 And it's just a seamless transition where, oh, now I actually have to be moving through the crowd myself. Like the cutscene I'm talking about in particular is the second, I think it was the second trailer or something. It was one of the trailers for RE 9. And it's Grace and her mom. And the way that this cutscene was done, Grace's mom kind of goes to like this picture I think, and there's a gun behind it. She grabs that and it's still the cutscene. And once they get to this door, Grace's mom opens the door and she says follow me.

41:19 You're already in gameplay. It like you don't you like it literally didn't. It's Jesus. That's the one thing with with Capcom like and also their their RE engine, the real, the realism of that engine is great, but it also is still kind of like. Hey girl, What? Do you think? It was. Well, some of them. He's releasing it. He's releasing it, Demons.

41:53 I am a ginger. Don't do estimate. That was a soul trying to get out. Please, I have no soul. Bitch, I'm going out of soul. Every time he hiccups, he's like, Nope, you get back down in there. Jesus Christ. But no, the except what I like with Capcom's new engine is it's, it is realistic, yes, but it also feels not like unreal where it's like, OK, we get it, it's realistic. But with Capcom's proprietary engine, it's realistic but also kind of goofy. Like that's, that's where I like. It's going for more of a for more of a artistic approach instead of, oh, everything has to be as greatly as possible.

42:53 'Cause I mean believe me, like we've talked about gaming art in one of the episodes, but I think it's between RE-8 and RE4. Remake of how pretty the game is but doesn't. Sacrifice the character. Yes, yeah, it's honestly pretty amazing. And it's a robust engine too. Man, this has gone like away from console wars, but I think it would help if companies like these big gaming corporations just made like started exploring different art styles other than just let's make this game look as pretty and immersive as possible.

43:36 Well, there's, there's a point where you're just like, this is still just a game like, yeah, pretty and immersive. Like takes you out of the immersion, if that makes any sense. That's personally, in my in my personal opinion, that's sort of the problem with the end of the console wars, because now that hardware is no longer the big thing, what's why are these companies using this show that they have the biggest stick and currently that's graphical fidelity. But but you can also have like, genuinely entertaining concepts.

44:06 Like for example, let's let's just say Split Gate. Yeah, it's Halo with portals. Yeah. From Portal. Yeah, pretty much. Like, that was kind of cool to see, yeah. And it was something different. It was that's there has to be more variety. Of course, but like, you know, just, you know, start start exploring different avenues and like you know, like like I know I contradicted myself at the beginning of the episode with like gaming exclusivity of how I hate them. Astrobot isn't on PC, but like I don't mind waiting a year.

44:37 Yeah, yeah. If they do like if all the consoles did exclusivity for a year and like started like you know, testing things out kind of like hi-fi rush even sadly that's gone the the company. Yeah, I know behind it that that was such a shame. Yeah. Like, oh, look, it made us all this money anyway, yeah. Pretty. Much. I think I said it a couple a couple of months ago, we're not even success as successful in this industry right now. I think we just need to find new identities to put these two like attach kind of like a face of the consoles.

45:17 Consoles don't have a face in it like Microsoft had Halo and Sony had, you know, like, yeah, got a war or Spyro, Uncharted, Crash Bandicoot, Horizon, you can name a lot, but I'm just saying like, you know, from the beginning or. Even for a while, it was a sack boy from Little Big Play. Yeah. We can say that like, let's say like sack boy and for PlayStation and you know, Master Chief for, you know, whatever. And then Master Chief Kirbys. No, let's let the Mario for for Nintendo for Nintendo now. I mean, yeah, there's still Mario for Nintendo, but the other two were like, I mean, yeah, Halo right now it's.

46:00 Mario in lawsuits. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Are you sure you think of a Legend of Zelda? No. It's it's it's same first letter. But yeah, I think that I think it's just the fact that the other two consoles lost their identity. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's a good deal, but well. Part, part part of what fed into that is that again, these games are now designed to be more vehicles of wealth extraction than any sort of entertaining experience. There's so much of A push for you to have to spend money in a cosmetics store or or when it was really bad with the microtransactions paid to win schemes.

46:49 But it it there's such a push for you would need to spend more money in order for the experience to get better for you is that a lot of these companies aren't going to take any more risks because they're like, well, if there's not XYZ marketable properties though, we just can't make money off of it. It just it sucks that. The the art has been lost. It's it's business running the show. It just it sucks to see that the creativity and fun has like died. Yeah. Like that's. I mean, arguably they're still fun, but they're still fun.

47:25 The. Creativity. They're fun, but but the the creativity is gone. The innovation is muted and it's it's just how can we push people to spend just a little bit more money even though they're strapped with cash? Yes, it's like because. Hardware sales are no longer doing it. No, no, not anymore. And like, I'm sorry, but I just in a couple of years I'm not sure if I can see Microsoft still hanging around. Well, well, Microsoft, yes, they'll be fine. Because Xbox. I mean being in the gaming. Sphere in the gaming sphere, I think what they'll be reduced down to is Game Pass and just trying to be a software developer for it, but.

48:11 Here's the thing, how can they put Game Pass anywhere else besides computers like because Sony has their what is it called? Oh they're they're like gaming catalog. I forgot what. The fuck? It's called PlayStation Plus. I mean, that's their service, but. But you know what I'm talking about though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if they, I mean, if they, if they haven't started already, then they're going 'cause you know, that's how good Game Pass was. Yeah, like, why not? In terms of that, like Game Pass definitely does.

48:45 And like, Nintendo already has that with their like, Game Boy catalog and their Game Cube catalog, their SNES or whatever. 64 catalogs? In a way, yes. I would say probably out of all of them, Microsoft has been probably the most successful with it. Oh, of course. But that's the other. Thing that's come at the cost of absorbing so many game companies. That yes, and that's the one thing with them absorbing Bethesda makes me worried because what are they? Are they going to shut them down eventually?

49:23 Probably not, but. I mean. I will be pissed. They'll probably they'll I'll shut down 5 smaller studios that the big name ones. That they'll re release Skyrim a couple more times. Before they say fuck everything. Getting a couple more Bill. And now that it's under the Microsoft umbrella, it's even more in communication with their tech. Jesus Christ. But with getting back on topic. Please scare them on your Fitbit. I do it. Soon enough you'll see it in your eyeball. Please. You get the lenses. Yeah, get lenses for your.

50:01 Eyes. There we go, I just woke up. Did you get the skin graft attachment and then you can feel the heat of the dragon flames? And then you get the microphone attachment. You. Actually have to like, scream at the top of your lungs too. Billy, go to sleep. Turn off your eyes. I swear. What's? What's?

50:24 Jesus Christ, I think that actually is kind of a thing. I swear on the 360 with Kinect. I think you could use your voice with the Kinect in Skyrim. I think so. OK, I was going to say, I mean, yeah you can, but I'm not sure about Skyrim. Really I I swear I think I it had that stupid little thing that says better with Kinect. Dude, you just reminded me this is off topic, but there's a there's a game, I think Mark, you know about this. It's like sock em U.S. Navy Seals or something like that on the PlayStation two yes and there was you could like actually use a microphone with it yes, it didn't work for me, but like, I guess you could do voice commands yes and be like OK, everyone moved to foxtrot.

51:06 Yep, OK, I'm like holy fucking shit. I remember that, yes, It was kind of cool. It was ahead of its time. It was. I got it, just I loved playing that game actually. Go back being back on topic with Hansel Wars. Hansel.

51:29 Do we have anything else or do I need to take the reins?

51:34 I. Think I'm just looking for my notes. I think we pretty much covered everything I. Think all gaming giants should just fucking die? Fuck. Fuck let's see cuz for me I can I. Can't. Fucking work. Nope. Here we go. OK, so. Kind of want to get us into the finishing thoughts segment. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I could say or ask if it the console words does fully go away, will it make a return do you think in the future? I mean predictions. I'm not sure you know, nobody has ever. But like I could see sooner or later they will some someone else like, you know, maybe Google will come back or something, some other John.

52:31 Stadium pick. We were so wrong. But no, I'm just saying like, maybe some, maybe if not Google, something else will like come in and be like, hey, here's our innovation. Yeah. If Xbox goes the way of the dinosaur, then there's cuz, you know, there's only room for so many people. That's why the Stadia died, Yeah. Also was kind of, I don't want to say it was ahead of the time. It was definitely. Ahead of his time for sure. But it just it, yeah, it was not ready. Yeah, but I mean, if Xbox does like doesn't do any more consoles, I can see another person rising up for consoles and then, you know, it comes back between maybe maybe this new console and Nintendo for some reason and leaving Sony alone.

53:14 Yeah, this, this definitely isn't a space where a vacuum will stay for long. I mean, we can look back through history in the gaming community with the the fall of Atari is a good one, and then Sega as well. Yeah. Like we, you saw new companies rose rise to film the vacuum and to reenergize the space. Inevitably, we will see new companies take the reins from at least Microsoft. But if Sony does fall too, then it's just going to be somebody else rising up to fill in the hardware void that that is, if we're still in a world that allows us to have physical media and like.

54:02 If this does happen, full predictions, I think that there will be someone that prioritizes fun and innovation. Not like, oh look, pretty things. I mean, that's normally how it starts off is that you have to, you have to build a following and you have to be. Of course it'll eventually reach there, you know cycles happen, but. That's just that's that's business. Do you have your eyes? But I just think that like having like a new player in the game with something new to the table. Just to shake it up.

54:30 Yeah. We'll definitely be like, oh, we should actually pay attention to this guy, Yeah. Like I wonder how different things would be if Sega didn't crash or like it did. Well, you probably would have seen some form of stagnation. Again, like I, like I said before this, like like you even put it out before it, it, it occurs in cycles if you want. If you want another sort of tangential example, look at what happened with Intel versus AMD in the in the chip space. Intel was the top dog for so long that they really got comfortable with where they were.

55:18 They just kept doing micro improvements to their architectures. And then AMD came out of nowhere with its Ryzen series, and now we're seeing Intel's struggle to maintain market cap. Yeah, the Ryzen CP us are. Very amazing, yeah. For what they are cuz yeah AMD was not doing well in years and years ago. Like they just, the Intel was the big name of processors and then now, yeah, they got so comfortable they started to kind of like make like you say, kind of micro adjustments to things. Why spend money on research and development when the competition isn't there?

56:05 Yeah. And then one and all of a sudden it resurges. You're fighting for your life, trying to innovate or die. I. Mean it's the tortoise on the hare. Like, yeah, once you are the hare, you're going to slow down. Yeah, once you're in the lead, you're just going to get comfortable with where you're going. But I get that point with that being so comfortable they started making mistakes. Yeah, you make mistakes. Innovation dies. You're just kind of stuck right where you are. And the one big mistake that I'm referring to, and it's kind of bad, I think it's the 13th Gen.

56:42 or the 14th Gen., there is a issue that the, I think it's like the I sevens, they are taking in more power than they're supposed to. And what that does is it causes a system instability which can cause your computer to shut down, crash like and that's a processor issue. And I believe my processor has that issue. Now what they did to kind of help with this? Now I'm not completely versed in this topic, but from my understanding there were some motherboard updates that helped stop the chip from exceeding it's voltage that it's supposed to be.

57:34 Doing yeah. So they did a lot of firmware updates where the chip would actually kind of monitor this. Yes. And if it was detecting that it's performance was drawing too much energy, they would tell the chip to kind of throttle things and slow it down. Yeah. So it would stop because you at that point, I don't think you would notice anything. Yeah. You yourself would not notice anything personally unless if you're doing something that over clocked that over clocked it or if you were doing like really intensive shit to your system.

58:08 And what's funny is so Minecraft took a Java, so kind of a side thing, but this kind of correlates with the processors. The you guys remember the like old console ports of the game like the 360 and and the Xbox One and all that. So Mark knows about this, Ethan, I don't know if I've told you, but somebody actually did make a one for one recreation of the console version of Minecraft that is up to date because, you know, the console versions, not Bedrock. That's different. The console versions from like the 360 and Xbox One editions, you know they stopped getting updates.

58:51 Yeah, they, they just kind of left ever left out of stasis because everything's going to series XS and the PS-5 and went on. And this is a literally a one to one recreation. It's called Reconsole. It's a mod pack you can download and literally it is like I said, one for one. And The funny thing about it, I've had it crash a couple times, and every single crash I get an error box pops up talking about, hey, your processor might have that bug I was talking about, you know? So it just made me think like, what the fuck, you know, because this computer's new.

59:38 This is what kind of ticks me off. The computer's fucking new, OK? It's expensive. It ain't cheap. And it's like now I have a processor that has an issue, which for the most part has been resolved at this point, but it shouldn't have been a problem in the 1st place. You guys should have been a little bit more diligent on what the hell you're doing. I get it. And I don't do that type of work. It's a lot harder than I'm saying. I have I have layman's knowledge of it from just my degree trick and it is so far more advanced.

1:00:13 So it's it just it ticks you off when you get these new things and it's like shit. Like I understand that the position I'm in when I bought this computer because it has everything new processor, DDR5 RAM, it's all new shit. So it's going to have some issues, but it's just it's annoying when a type of issue that I that I quote UN quote had think I've dealt with, but I can't say for sure could have been completely negated if diligence was a thing. Yeah, you know, so now be completely honest. When this computer dies, I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna go over to AMD.

1:00:57 Yeah, I'm AMD is definitely doing a lot more and like even their their thread Ripper processor. I don't know if you've seen that chip. Yeah, that fucking thing is huge. I mean it's it's a server chip from what you. Expect it's a server slash workstation chip. Like, just the chip itself is hilariously big and I love it. And the fucker's got 96 cores and I'm like, that's why you're like 10 grand. So I mean. And the way it's it goes into it's socket, you slide it in and then you push it down, it's like, man, holy shit, futuristic.

1:01:38 Yeah, it's, it's neat, Yeah. So it's, you know, it's it's pretty cool. But with this topic, I said council wars. This is what we have, what we think. We'd love to hear any type of comments that you might have from our viewers, you know, what's your history with console wars, you know? Yeah. Did you dabble in the arguments? You know, did you? Just kind of let it slow or. Did you kind of just let it go? Yeah.

1:02:14 And I guess I could throw this out there. What side were you? Yeah, no, like just for the hell of it. Sure, things will remain civil. If it doesn't remain civil. I'm watching you every step of the way. Watch what you do carefully. We will call you up on the episode. I'll call you out when you don't put the toilet paper on the right side of the roll. That shit pisses me up. Nah, I don't care about that. But I'm in your walls. This has been plug in for player toilet paper. Thank you for what I'm done.

1:02:50 What the fucker say right? We have a brand image to maintain. What brand? Plug in for player 4. Are you the viewer? Are the player 4? OK. Any closing thoughts? No, maybe. Yes. I'm tired. EP Yeah. We got to get some monster in him and you know.

1:03:16 Supercharging. Yes, all. Right. I guess we're good. Yeah, I'll go. Well, thank you for everybody who has listened to this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Again, let us know your thoughts in the comments below. I guess you could answer the question of what side were you on? What do you think of the the council waters? And if you comment, we might reply, you never know.

1:03:47 That was a little creepy. Gosh.

1:03:50 Well, you never. Know you never do. I'm in your rooms. OK, hit that button. Shut that door. If you know what I'm referencing, you're awesome. But yes, this has been plug in for Player 4. We hope you have enjoyed the episode and we will see you next time. Bye guys, bye bye. Now I'm going to have to cut that.