Asmongold TV - This Game Changed My Mind | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

This Game Changed My Mind Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. ----------------------------- ------- Keywords: reaction videos, streamer content, streaming moments, game reviews, world of warcraft, gaming culture, gaming drama Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So this game came out a little bit ago, Oblivion. And I was so wrong about Elder Scrolls. I thought Elder Scrolls was a millennial, funkop, modern audience game because I played Starfield. And I didn't realize how much we had lost until I played Oblivion. I didn't even know. I had no idea. And it's like the funny thing.

thing is that within like two minutes of playing the game, I knew that it was like, it was the fucking game. Like that intro was insane. It was real. I didn't think that there was any shot that Xbox would want a shadow drop in oblivion remaster to this level of quality. Yeah. It just didn't make any sense to me. And on top of that, we've seen this kind of thing happen. I don't even know how many times the screenshots, the leaks, the rumors, the comparison videos, and all of it led to absolutely nothing. Yep. And even more so just the idea of it being a shadow drop doesn't make any sense. Because Xbox's track record is massive, right?

It's not that good. The vast majority of their games have not done well. Avowed was a thing. Starfield is not going to be remembered very fondly. No. Do you would expect that they'd want to give this game the red carpet treatment? Yeah, exactly. Through their credit, they didn't need to.

You don't need to have a bunch of marketing. It's just, all that's bullshit. Make a good game, people are going to play the game. Make a bad game, they're not going to play it even if you spend a billion dollars. don't tell the companies this because if you do they might stop sponsoring me though in remake is taken over the entire internet at this point I call it a remake because that's exactly what it looks like

to be honest with you though I am haunted by people's character creations good Lord people I know that sometimes I can be overly critical of a lot of games and the industry as a whole but I have no problem celebrating things that are worth celebrating and there is a lot worth celebrating here I don't think that we've seen an all around home run

from a AAA publisher like this in a long time. This has swung positive sentiment in their direction. It's created a lot of goodwill, and it has embarrassed their competition. They did it all for $50. Didn't I say something? Was it? Oblivion was only 50 bucks?

About competitive pricing? I didn't even know that. Today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about my return to one of my favorite games of all time, Elder Scrolls Oblivion. We're going to talk about its internet takeover and why I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this. Yeah, they did.

future. Xbox just haymakered Nintendo in broad daylight and nobody's talking about it. You guys know it's really nice when they start fighting for our money. This all started the way these things normally do. A few breadcrumbs on Reddit, Jeff Grub dropping some hints, leakers whispering about an oblivion remake. Most people didn't buy it, myself included, because Bethesda doesn't do remakes. They repackaged their games. Remasters, ports, re-releases, sure, but a full-blown remake, that sounds like a fantasy. But then it happened. Bethesda confirmed it and said it. date for a live stream the following day and then right after the thing is also now that they did this the amount of hype that would be for a morrowand remake would be just off the fucking charts

that's not a really big reason was available for download the remaster was being handled by virtuous if you guys have heard the name it's because they've been everywhere at this point these are the same folks that are working on the upcoming metal gear solid remake they've worked on the assassin's creed etcio collection batman arkham collection the bioshock collection dark souls remastered near Automata, end of Yorha edition, and more. This is far from their first rodeo, and in fact, they might be the best possible team to be able to handle a game like Oblivion, because this isn't just another classic. This is Oblivion, a cultural cornerstone, an RPG that shaped an entire generation's taste.

For many of us, this was the blueprint. This was the genre. And Bethesda, they needed this. Even I played oblivion back in the day. Badly. Like, I took time away from playing Halo and World of Warcraft to play Ablivivian. Starfield was supposed to be their second coming. A brand new IP, huge scale, that signature Bethesda Magic but in space.

It launched big, but it fizzled fast. Word of mouth, tank, streamers dropped it in days, engagement plummeted, and then after that, they went into full-on damage control. Narratively, Neal Pagia Larullo was firing off tweets, mocking players for not understanding the realities of game development. Debs then took to Steam with copy-pasted replies to combat negative reviews saying things like, Some of Starfield's planets are meant to be empty by design.

But it's bad on purpose. We wanted it to be bad. You can't say the game's bad. We wanted it to be bad. That means it's good. That's not boring. When the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. Certainly, they weren't bored.

Guys, what the hell were you even doing? This is a complete mess. Starfield didn't flop because it was broken. It flop because it was dull. It didn't live. It didn't breathe. It didn't matter. more than anything else.

And that opened the door to the question whether or not Bethesda still has what it takes to even make games that people love. And I think that's what makes this remaster such a moment. It's not just a nostalgia bomb. It's a reputation reset. A chance for Bethesda to remind people

what made them believe in them in the first place. I mean, to me, like, I'm going to just be honest. Bethesda didn't even make this fucking game. Another company made this game. And it's a game they made 19 years ago. So like I see this happen and I'm not like oh well Bethesda's back

no this is like the Blizzard re-releasing classic wow and be like oh blizzard's back no make this game themselves they green lit it they oversaw it they let it exist without mangling it

and it worked I want to be clear about something this isn't the kind of game that we need to see reach 500,000 concurrent players on Steam it is not here to compete with today's modern releases it is here to regain goodwill. Well, it did.

And rebuild Bethesda's brand. I find it hilarious when I go and I read, the ever-wise ex-Blizzard president turned sports betting CEO that's now marketing gambling to kids through Twitch. Mike Yubara said that I'm skeptical about 20-year-old remasters. This guy really, uh, it's like a really good way to tell like what's a bad idea is you just listen to this guy and you'll know.

Just whatever he thinks, probably a bad idea. It's kind of sad because I thought he was actually like, the funny thing is that I think the reason why this guy is so off all the time is because he doesn't play enough video games. Because when he took over Blizzard, World of Warcraft legitimately got a lot better. And it's because he was a no-lifer for wow. This guy was an unironic, wow, no-lifer, and he played the game probably as much as I did.

But the fact is, like, he probably didn't play Oblivion. He didn't know enough about these games. And so his viewpoints are just simply wrong, not because he's a bad person or he's stupid. It's just that he doesn't know and he doesn't have the context for it. What was once fantastic, now remaster. He's been wrong about so many things. Never hold up to modern masterpieces like Eldon Ring. I was actually going to reply to this.

The bar has simply moved from a safe open world RPG to what Eldon Ring brought us all. I would love to be proven wrong, but I'm not. Like every single game has to be Eldon Ring. And also he's right. Like, yeah, you're absolutely right. the combat and gameplay of old games will oftentimes not be as good as new games. And I will even say something, this might make some people mad. I think of Al's combat is better than oblivion's combat.

It is. But that doesn't make it a better game. Combat is not the entire game. But I guess if you're a Mythic Plus Andy from Wow, like he is, it is for you. He was proven wrong within hours. The game exploded on Steam with over 182,000 concurrent players. It's probably sold millions of copies. straight out of the gate. My feet has been wall-to-wall oblivion lately.

Screenshots, bugs, memes, goof. That's the president. That's number 48 right there, gentlemen. He faces pure joy. I've never seen so many grown men misty-eyed over a game. Okay. Game drop. Games like the oblivion remaster are not here to define the modern era. They are here to remind us and developers of the past. And let us revisit it with a new coat of pain. They are made cheap, sub-100 million dollars.

They don't need to sell 10 million copies to be viable. Nobody needs oblivion to stand toe-to-to-to with Eldon Ring. We need Elder Scroll 6 to do that. Why do you think that they release the game for $50, Mikey? Now, I've been playing it myself and, oh, man, I'm just going to say it. This has to be one of the hardest start screens in gaming history. It's so fucking good, dude. It's so fucking good.

that theme kicked in I just sat there staring for like 15 minutes total blackout is this actually happening it's wild to think that it's been almost 20 years and another thing is like there's no purple

there's no like bright purple and bright green there's no millennial handwriting there's none of this it's just very simply a fucking badass game like I'm sorry but like this

this is a game for guys it is years. Two decades. I usually credit Grandia 2 on Dreamcast for being the game that may be fall in love with RPGs, but Oblivion is the one that coded it into my DNA. People will tell you how revolutionary it was,

how open it fell, how immersive it was, but that undersells it. For a lot of us, this isn't just our favorite game. This is the game. This is the one that defined an era. I still, to this day, struggled to explain what it felt like to play the game. It was a real adventure, streamlined from Marowin,

sure. It was much more accessible, but that didn't really matter. Before Eldon Ring was the game that was praised for just letting you go, Oblivion was already doing it. I put thousands of hours into the game without even... I feel stupid for saying this, but like, I didn't realize that large-scale open-world games were even possible back then. Like, I didn't understand the scale of Oblivion at all, because whenever I originally played it on Xbox, like, I was like 15 or like 16. trying. You guys have to understand. This is before YouTube guides pre-Twitch. You didn't even know what was coming. You couldn't plan that mystery, that sense of unpredictability, it was electric. I remember getting caught and tossed in jail, ended up invited into the thieves guild. Then I went and I botched a job where I killed a guy by accident. You just look at the visuals for this and this is fucking badass. I think that a lot of people really forget the fact that making something look really cool matters a lot. And this looks really cool. Kicked out and suddenly I'm now being recruited into the Dark Brotherhood. I would spend hours just wandering the land, finding ruins, delving into dungeons,

interacting with everything I could to build up by proficiencies. I forgot that the main quest even existed until I stumbled over a hill and saw an oblivion gate in the distance. This was the first time I had ever played a game that was reacting to me, not leading me. You didn't play oblivion, you lived it. And somehow, some way we get to do that all over again.

I don't think people recognize how special of an occasion this is. Well, it's also the voice acting even. It's like you compare the voice acting in this versus like avowed or really the main one is Assassin's Creed Shadows. And it's just not even the same universe. It's delivered exactly what this game needed. It is still janky. It's still weird.

It's still buggy, but it's sharper, cleaner, and more modern where it counts. They kept the creation engine as the system that is running the game's logic, but they layered Unreal Engine 5 over the top of it to graphically bring it into the modern era. They let it be what it was, but just with a bit more polish. I mean, they still even kept the goofy misreads from the voice actors in the original. I heard the thieves broke into the Arcane University, the Imperial Legion compound, and the temple all on the same night. Wait a minute, let me do that one again.

Combat feels tighter, the UI. Oops. See, that's the kind of stuff that people love. I love they did that, yeah. is cleaner, you can actually assign your stats manually instead of just getting locked into a starting class. Small, smart, meaningful changes. That is all this game needed. And man, booting this game up after so many years, it feels surreal. Sure, the colors could pop more performance is a little bit iffy. It's Unreal Engine 5. I do think that a lot of games do have this like piss filter on them

that takes the vibrancy of old video games and it makes it more dull and drab. And I think it needs to be fixed. But there's a spectrum between, you know, that and like the super saturated colors of things like borderland, the new borderlands and like avowed. But that middle ground is the way that games used to look. Like World Warcraft used

to be like that too. My reshade fixed it. Yeah, I didn't even I haven't tried that. Kind of a mess on PC and console. That's becoming a bit of a trend lately. Not a good one. Definitely makes me worried about the future of games with more studios wanting to adopt Unreal Engine 5. But in motion,

It's beautiful. The Imperial City glowing on the horizon, stars above the forest, the scope of the game. This is, this is it. It feels real. The models, yeah, to be honest with you, a lot of them actually fall into the uncanny territory. It's definitely not how I imagine some of these characters. I think that Unreal just doesn't really do a very good job at making skin textures very well. Like, I think they can if it's like fully invested into, but in a general sense, I just don't think it's very good.

pictures would look using modern textures, but Bethesda has skipped an entire generation of hardware. It has been 20 years since Oblivion released. It's been over a decade now since Skyrim released. So anything at this point is going to look otherworldly. This isn't just a remaster, it's a recalibration. This is not a victory lap, but a course correction. It doesn't prove that Bethesda still has it,

but it shows that they remember at least what it looked like. And maybe that's enough for now. Because Elder Scroll 6 is... Again, again, again. Another company made this. Still on the horizon, and this could be exactly what they needed to be able to reset the table.

I do think that's true. Is that my trepidation with Elder Scroll 6 has gone down with the Oblivion remake? Because they did oversee this to some degree, obviously. And it's pretty good. We didn't need to reinvent oblivion. That wasn't necessary here. They just needed to remind everyone why we loved it.

And they did. I feel like this should be the point. of making remasters or remakes. It's an opportunity to go back and touch the very games that made these companies who they are. Remind them of what players want

and then build upon. If Nintendo had any balls, they would contract out from software to remake Legend of Zelda linked to the past like Elbin Ring. Yep.

On that. After closing my first oblivion gate and watching the flames spew out all around me, my game crashed. immediately afterwards. It's such an authentic experience. They really captured what it was like to play it back in the day.

I mean, they layered Unreal Engine 5 over the creation engine. What do we think was going to be the result of that? But yeah, it's buggy. There's tons of issues and things like that. It's just so damn fun to play. It's so fun to explore. And it's one of those games where you don't realize how much you missed it until you go back to play it.

And I've just been enjoying myself. With that said, I do think that this is a reminder that there's a difference between bugs and performance issues. And it's like I said earlier this week. So true. There are a lot of bugs and funny things that happen in video games that give the video games a quirkiness and soul. But you want to know what one of those things isn't.

It's when your computer blue screens and then you can't even boot to BIOS. That's not fun. Or your game crashes when it's compiling the shaders. Yeah, that's not... Oh, every game's going to have bugs. bugs are goofy. Well, what's goofy about this one?

Oh, it deletes your save file. Players are going to put up with a lot if the game is fun or enjoyable. Games will be judged by their merits if they have them. If there is no merit, well, then all they're going to see is the negative. Yeah, of course.

You're not having that with this game because people are just having fun playing. That's how that whole thing works. I know this is a Bethesda-led project and Virtuous is the one that actually developed it. And those guys have been cooking, by the way. Holy shit. but Bethesda needed something after Starfield.

That game, I don't think people realize how much damage that did to their reputation. You have to keep in mind that before Starfield, it's been over a decade since Bethesda released a new game, which means that in that time, an entire console generation, the gaming market- Well, they released SkyRum 10 times, but yeah.

It has tripled. There's triple the players, triple the money. And with that, Starfield ended up being people's first taste of Bethesda. That was me. Because I played oblivion whenever I was so stupid that I didn't even know what I was doing. Like all I knew is that I bought a house and I put all the swords in the house

and then I would go and kill people and put their swords in my house. That was it. That's all I did. And it tasted like shit. You have to do something about that. You can't let that sit out there like that. Putting out an oblivion remaster at this level of quality, that's going to give you a much better reputation.

Especially for the price that they put it at. 50 bucks. Here's the thing. This isn't just a Bethesda decision. This was an Xbox decision. They were the ones that said, hey, we need to go. I'm telling you guys, Xbox is cooking. I know they did those price increases and fuck them for that. But Xbox is going to be where it's at. I'm telling you guys. Make an Oblivion remaster. I talked to a couple people and they said it wasn't even Bethesda that actually pulled the trigger on it. It was Xbox. And it was a smart choice by them. But they've had a rough goal of it for the last decade or more now. The Xbox one series didn't do very well with them. Then now Xbox series is not doing very well for them. The competition is lapped. They don't care.

I think that Xbox sees the future. The future is cloud gaming. And if they can develop GamePass and build a foundation and like a effective monopoly with GamePass and video game game game. Then as soon as cloud gaming happens, everybody will transition over to GamePass because it will be easier to do. And they'll have a complete market control. I think Xbox is thinking about this in 20 years and 10 years right now. And I think they're making the right calls. Sounds like hell.

No, it's not. It's going to be great. I'm telling you guys this is what's going to happen. I think they're laying, they've been laying the foundation for this for like the last five or ten years. Having them like it's a damn tradition at this point. And, you know, a funny thing happens when these companies get backed into a corner. They start looking for other options.

They start trying to fight back. And they start swinging like they should have swung a long time ago. And in the case of Xbox, it's pricing a game fairly. You know, Nintendo just announced a $90, Breath of the Wild plus DLC remaster. And then here comes Xbox with one of the most renowned and one of the most well-known games in Bethesda's entire game catalog. And they put it out for 50 bucks.

Yeah. That's not a coincidence. This isn't some bargain bin bundle half-hearted re-skin. This is a nearly full remake of one of the most influential RPGs of all time. Not just with visual upgrades, but rebuilt on Unreal Engine 5 packed with DLC, improved systems, better combat, and a UI overhaul. It is on the same level of fidelity and scope as the Demon Souls remake from Blue Point. And that game... That's fucking true.

That remake, because like every remake before that was garbage and the Demon Souls remake changed my entire perspective on remakes. It was so insanely fucking good. I was shocked by playing it. Launched at $70 and still cost $70 today. And yet here we are with Bethesda and Xbox just dropping Oblivion for $50. Not 60, not 70, not 90, 50. That alone makes it one of the most important releases of this year, not because of what the game is, but because of what that price represents. In an industry that's currently feeding on its own customers, where publishers have spent the last four years normalizing $70 as the baseline and now pushing into the $80 to $90 range without even blinking. This isn't just a fair deal. It's a challenge, a correction. And I don't think it's a

coincidence. I think it's a deliberate, calculated decision that signaling two things loud and clear. Xbox knows that the industry is overreaching and they plan to undercut it. At least that's what I think also another big reason is that you can make every argument like I have about the complexities of let me sorry I'm like I'm drawing a blank for a second the complexities of like inflation video game development and everything like that

but none of that is going to tell a person who is like basically financially insecure that they should spend their last $70 on your game that's the reality is that like you can make every argument for inflation and every single

argument can be right and it will not matter nobody will care. It makes the most sense from my perspective because Xbox isn't doing great. They haven't been doing great for a long time since the disastrous release of the Xbox 1. The brand has struggled to find its identity. They lost ground to PlayStation during the last generation and they never fully recovered.

And now here we are in the Xbox series era and things haven't gotten any better. If anything, they've regressed even further. Xbox console sales have completely tanked while PlayStation is outselling them at twice the rate. The Nintendo Switch is likely to be the most sold console in gaming history. breaking over 150 million units sold. If we look at the last two of years... Oh, God. Nintendo, it's crazy how good Nintendo is.

I feel like the Switch 2 isn't going to be that big of a deal, but I always feel like they're on the edge. Years of their game releases, Hi-Fi Rush is arguably the only respected release. Redfall blew a hole in the ground. Starfield was memed on for months. South of Midnight was an interesting game, but it's not really going to be pushing any units.

And about, I'm sure some people played... Jesus. Do you remember whenever I said that Avald was going to get 40 or 50,000 players? Do you guys remember when I said that? Fuck. I thought you, I'd hope people had forgotten. I really, I thought for sure, like after the early access, more people would buy the game. There's like, there's no way that, like, nobody else is even going to play it, right?

And it was. Why not check it again? What was Avaled? It was a game. That's what people say. least. It on Game Pass. It's ironic, really.

Xbox has essentially returned to the exact position that it was in before the Xbox 360, the forgotten platform. Well, here's the thing. The reason why Xbox fell off is actually because of the Xbox one, I believe. The Xbox One was released or announced with a number of, I would not even say consumer unfriendly. I would say consumer detrimental. and insulting to consumers' features.

You could not resell games for the Xbox one. The Xbox one always had to have a camera attached to it, and it always had to be connected to the internet. Sony went out, and this is the beauty of the free market. Sony went out, and they said, nope, that's dumb, and they released the PlayStation 4, completely fucking blue Xbox out of the water. I was an Xbox fanboy.

After they made those decisions, I was a Sony fanboy. And I have a PS4 right over there. I don't have an Xbox one. I got a PS5 right there next to me. I don't think Xbox realized how much damage that dealt to their brand by having a lot of people like me that just don't trust them anymore. Right? In a lot of ways.

And like I started to trust them again and like it's okay. and all right, all right, all right. But it took a long time. Worst generation to lose. Yeah, I still had my PS4. I watch my PS4 every day. I watch Xbox on. We being in a Switch 2?

Yeah, I'm getting it, day one. I'm getting a day one switch. We're going to play Mario Kart, play wherever the fuck else. Yeah, for sure, 100%. Technically, confident, but no killer identity. Much of that, I blame on the loss of Halo. Fumbling your mascot and what your console is known for is going to have some pretty harsh consequences.

After I heard those dick suckers over at Xbox, didn't want to have a collab episode. in the secret door or whatever, those like different series where Master Chief teams up with the Doom guy, that really worried me. That really stressed me.

I was like, how could you not do that? Secret level? Yeah, there it was. If there's a season two, that it'd better fucking be in it. But as the hardware battle is drug on, they have been put in a corner. They have to start fighting back. I don't think this $50 price

is a piece offering, it's a pivot. Or at least it should be. This is the kind of move that you make when you realize that your platform has no dominance, and your audience is not big enough for you to be able to justify absurd prices. So instead, what you do is you lean into something that you can control.

Price value. While Sony and Nintendo are too busy extracting maximum value out of their same recycled franchises at inflated prices, Xbox just handed players one of the most iconic RPGs ever made at a price that actually respects their wallet. Well, and it's transformative enough

for people to play it again. Like there have been a lot of remasters of games that I just didn't want to play again because it's like this is basically the same thing but it's slightly better. I don't really care. Timing really matters here because you cannot tell me that it's a coincidence that we just saw Nintendo announce Mario Kart World

for $80 and a Zelda, Breath of the Wild, a 10-year-old game, DLC remaster bundle for $90. Xbox undoubtedly is trying to make Nintendo look foolish. They're trying to take advantage of this. situation. This is exactly what we want to see. This is the energy that we need. This is exactly what I hope that we would start seeing. These companies need to be at each other's throats because when they are, players win. Again, the Xbox 1 and PlayStation 4 is the best example I can give of that.

There's so competition breeds excellence. Just the way it is. Better games, better prices and less arrogance. It breeds quality. It forces fairness. The problem is for years now, this industry hasn't had any real competition. Sony and Nintendo don't really compete with one another. They operate in entirely different lanes. Nintendo dominates the handheld section and family-oriented experiences while Sony rules the high-end console space. And Xbox, well, they used to be the equalizer.

They used to be that third pillar that kept the other two in check. But after a decade of missteps, they've lost their power. And with it, they- Xbox lost the main, I think the main strength that Xbox had was Xbox Live. Like, that was the one thing that, Nintendo didn't have, and PlayStation, I mean, like, get

the fuck out of here, right? Xbox Live was fucking amazing. Lost relevance. Now, keep in mind, none of these platforms are trying to compete directly with PC. They don't think the players are just going to wall off and go and build a gaming PC. Steam to them is treated like it's an

alternate revenue stream, not a rival. And so, with Xbox being largely absent from the fight, Nintendo and Sony have gotten incredibly comfortable, too comfortable. And that's why we're seeing higher prices because without competition, they don't really have to care with the players thing. Nope. But even unchecked,

there's a ceiling because eventually that arrogance is going to collide with an even bigger issue. Saturation. And I think that Xbox and the pricing... There's just too many fucking games, man. That's the other problem. There's so many things getting released that an average person with a job doesn't have time to consume all

of the content. Like, I'll give you one example. I never finished or even played that Mandra Cora game. Remember, like that two-dimensional Souls game that I really wanted to play. It was kind of like Castlevania. I didn't even play it. I didn't have time.

And I didn't finish. There was another one I didn't play. Um, fuck. What was it? Yeah, I never finished AI limit. I didn't do AI limit. I didn't do Kazan. I didn't finish Kazan.

Like, there's just always new games coming out more and more and more and more. And so it's really hard to even keep up with it unless you're playing games all the time. We just saw maybe. the first time in years that they just took a step towards addressing that. Because the truth is, nobody is safe from the looming threat that's been creeping beneath all of these price hikes, remasters, deluxe editions, and seasonal roadmaps of live service games. The games industry right now is making too much content and it's making it too fast at too high of a price for an audience that is already overwhelmed. I'm seriously wondering if Xbox's pricing of the Oblivion remaster

may be a sign that some of these publishers are waking up to the idea that there is an oversupply crisis unfolding across this entire industry. Too many games, too little demand. Mid-tier and even some AAA games are being churned out at record speeds, but the audience simply isn't there to sustain all of it. I mean... It's the same thing with Assassin's Creed Shadows. Like two or three years ago,

I probably would have beaten Assassin's Creed Shadows. I would have played all the way through the game. The reason why I didn't... It's just not enough time. Like, in what universe would I want to play Assassin's Creed Shadows when I could beat like a dragon pirate yakuza. Like this is a better game. And so I'm just going to play this instead.

And I beat it. So that's just what happens. There's just too many, too many fish. Just in the last six months alone, we saw Monster Hunter Wilds, Path of Exile 2, avowed, Marvel rivals, split fiction, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Schedule 1, Expedition 33,

and Oblivion Remastered, all of them dropping in an increasingly crowded marketplace. What the fuck? And that's only scratch. the surface of some of the games that were released. I mean, the whole reason that I was confused and frustrated about Nintendo... Have you guys ever said, like, I mean, I'm sure a lot of you guys probably, like, you know, coming from the same place, right?

Have any of you guys also said to your friends, I wish I had like a hyperbolic time chamber so I could play all the video games that I want to? Because I tell this to my friends all the time. I'm like, I actually don't have the amount of time to play the... Yeah, exactly, right? Like, because, yeah, for fucking sure. Yes. A time stock, yes.

prices to $80 or analysts thinking that it's somehow healthy for Grand Theft Auto 6 to go up to $100 was there is simply just too many games in this industry. There's too many games that are out there. Players have too much choice. And when supply is that high and demand is so low, prices have to come down to meet demand or you're just going to see more games fail and more studios close. And I think that's what Xbox might be betting on, not nostalgia, not charity, market pressure. I want you guys to think about it like this. When a remaster hits the market with near remake level quality, full DLC, and a sub-premium price,

it suddenly looks like it's the best value in the room because it is the best value in the room. This is in goodwill, this is strategy, because unlike Sony and Nintendo, Xbox doesn't have anything left to protect. Their first-party titles haven't had any impact. Their platform isn't going to be winning the hardware race. They're dead.

Xbox says a platform is dead. Game passes the platform. Xbox is simply a vehicle to deliver that platform. Their legacy titles, Halo, Gears, Fable, they've either gone cold or gone missing. Game Pass. No, no, no.

To be fair, to be fair, all they need is one good Halo. They do one good halo. Fable is good. That's it. They're back. That's it. Just one.

Yep. Just one good halo. That's all they need. All smart in theory hasn't really become the Netflix of gaming like they would have hoped. So the only one, that these guys can compete is through value. In my opinion, by the way, I think what they need to do is the need to re-export reach.

I think the future of Halo is reach because it creates a multiplayer foundation that makes sense. Not gears? Well, no, I didn't say gears because I think they're making the exact right call with gears. Ede looks fucking amazing. Like, I'm going to play the fuck out of that game. It's going to be awesome. so I don't have to worry about that because it's already happening. You still believe in a good Halo?

I think they need to fire a 343. How the fuck can you make bad products for 10 years and still not be removed? I mean, I know that they like renamed the studio to like the Halo studio, but like really, I mean, it's just the same thing. Why I think Xbox might actually be learning, not because they care more, not because they've suddenly wanted to become more consumer first, but because they're desperate. They have to.

They've lost too much ground to be able to play by the old rule, so now they're going to start trying to test out some new ones. Out of the three major platform holders, they are the weakest, but they're also the most dangerous, especially given the fact that they have done away with console exclusivity. So if they start slashing prices, that's going to become a problem

because they're not just going to be doing it on their platform. They're going to be doing it on their competitors' platforms as well. I'm really hoping that this isn't just some one-off play because this could be the start of a winning strategy. Think about the games that Xbox has in their pipeline. Doom Dark Ages, Gears of War, Eday, Fable, these aren't throwaway titles. these are high profile IPs with built-in audiences.

If Xbox sticks to this model, competitive pricing, multi-platform releases, they could position themselves as the one major publisher that's actually in touch with reality. Now, to be clear, I don't-

What a fucking shock, by the way. I would have never expected this from Microsoft. You remember when Weech came out? Never one was shitting on it because it wasn't Halo 3? No. Like, I read the Halo trilogy books in ninth grade.

So, like, for me, like Reach was awesome. Like I was so excited for Reach. So I didn't, I don't remember seeing that at all. People didn't like ODST because it wasn't, you know, like the Spartans. But other than that,

I remember Reach was really positive. The one major publisher, it's actually in touch with reality. Now, to be clear, I don't think that's actually going to happen. I don't have a lot of faith in this industry or these publishers to think that these guys are going to have the foresight to realize

that if you slash your prices in response to your competition increasing theirs, you're going to be able to reach higher revenues. You're going to be able to reach a much wider audience. But if anybody could do it, it would be Xbox. They're the ones that are the best position to be able to pull this off in the first place. Their games are largely subsidized through GamePass to begin with.

They already have done away with console exclusivity. So you're going to be cutting prices on their platform. Imagine how much that would suck to be them. Imagine the impact of a game-wide. Like, Doom Dark Age is dropping for 60 instead of $70. I know it's already at $70 right now. Or 60 instead of 80. Because like the more that they maintain the same prices

and the more that everybody else increases their prices, that's a larger pricing difference every single year. But this is a hypothetical more than anything else. I wish these companies would wake up to realize this. The problem is these guys, for the most part, have banned it against us. They've been working together. They've been following one another. rather than actually competing with one another.

And because of that, things have been incredibly unfair for us. You know, I saw somebody that was very upset with the fact that I was talking about the Elder Scrolls Oblivion and its remaster and how much I've been enjoying it. I've been meming on Twitter and stuff about it. Who was mad? And they said that you cry for change, but you keep handing them money. We only get- Why would somebody that is the change?

You, what, what? But oblivion is good. So what? Like, Buy good games, don't buy bad games. Like, what? Change if we vote with our wallets. And voting with your wallet doesn't mean not buying anything because things

really aren't going to change and that's not even realistic to begin with. People are just going to buy something instead. But supporting a near remake, like Oblivion for $50 is the exact kind of message that you want to send. You want to reward good behavior. Don't buy the bad games. Buy the good. games you're not gonna what good behavior don't buy the bad games buy the

good games you're oh oh oh oh oh I've been doing it wrong this whole time we're not gonna we're not winning anything if you're not buying games that are actually good or worth support you want to send a signal to these companies saying I gotta get a refund on a few games right now and then they'll make more of it essentially it's how it's supposed to work whether it actually does I guess we'll find out in the future, but yeah. I've been having a lot of fun playing Oblivion. It has been so great to return back to the game. Oh man, it's been so long since I've played in a Bethesda title to begin with. I think I only played like 15 hours of Starfield before I gave it up, but I've just been

having a lot of it. I played 60. You didn't miss anything. It's honestly one of my favorite games of all time, so it's kind of surreal that they even made a remaster like this in the first place. It's been blowing my mind. Though I still need to play Expedition 33. That's my next one. That's my next one. Marathon Alpha. Apparently Bungie wants to talk to me. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, bro, like marathon? Like, they had to extend the alpha. I really think they have to let it cook. I mean, like, the fact that, like, isn't it sad that that, what's that fucking game that everybody's playing? You know who I talked to about this last night?

Polk. I talked to Polk. I talked to poke about this. He's playing this new extraction game. What is it fucking called? Arc Raiders. Yes. Apparently, everybody loves this shit.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the video. Hope you guys have been enjoying Oblivion. I'm going to be playing a little bit more of it tonight. Hopefully I'll play some Expedition 33 as well. But, yeah, outside of that, stay cool, stay righteous, stay safe. I'll catch you guys to the next one. Family, man. Family.

It's really good to see Xbox making good decisions. I'm happy. And I actually think that, and I know this might sound crazy. I'll link you guys to video, give it a like. This is definitely a great fucking video. I think that Xbox right now is the most consumer-friendly. I think that they give you the most freedom. They don't force you to buy their consoles because they release on PC on day one.

It's the most consumer-friendly publisher in the market.