Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Grading Xbox's 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Thank You For The Support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Reviewing Xbox’s 2024 - Ads - The 2nd Half of 2024 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's going on? Everybody, welcome to another episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, November 25th, 2004. Turn on the Green because you get a very special X-cast takeover with your boy Snowbike, Mike, and one of my gaming dads, Mr. Paris Lily for this lovely Monday, November 25th. Paris, it's my favorite day of the week. How are you feeling on this Monday? I'm doing good except, no Gary. No, Gary. Gary was in the studio. last week. He brought a whole lot of energy.

He ripped apart a PlayStation 5 Pro 30th anniversary. We had so much fun with Gary. But he has always missed whenever we turn the light screen over here. Absolutely. And I thought we'd get the X-Cast intro. They should just do, when we do these year reviews, you should

do PSI Love You XOXO intro and X-Cast intro for this. That's what you should do. It's a great call. Production will take a note on that one for next year. So 365 days. I'm writing down that note and I'm throwing it away. Yes. Did I delete those intros from these the second we made these games cast?

Yes. Because I need to clear as much space as possible because we're always, we always have so many files in here. So, yeah. I want to be in the game cast intro for 2025. How about this? See, I'm just being demanding. Okay. I want to be a part of stuff.

Paris, it's just slack to me. Just slack me. Parris, you can do whatever you want when it's you and I here on the set. Of course, today's topic. is talking about all things Xbox 24. Looking back on 365 days of Xbox, we're almost there, but we'll

talk about 2024 and how the team in Green did. Of course, we want to hear from each and every one of you if you're watching live over on Twitch and on YouTube. Of course, please feel free to super chat away, get involved in the conversation. Tell me your thoughts and opinions on the ecosystem, the platform,

the games, what you thought of 2024. Of course, you can also get involved in the chat totally for free. We'll read off some of the chats. And if you're watching later on YouTube or podcast services around the gloat, come on back to the podcast on the YouTube and leave a comment. Tell me what you thought of the year. Give it

a grade on the kind of funny scale, 1 through 10 and let us know what you think. But today, Paris, I'm going to need your help. I'm going to need the live chats help because tracking back 365 days, there's a lot of content here from the Xbox team to go over a lot of news, a lot of stories,

a lot of games. So I'm very excited to talk about that with you. But before we do that. Can I say this before you jump into it? I saw a smart-ass comment after you tweeted out about us doing this. I saw a smart-ass comment. It was like, well, this episode would be 20 minutes.

I was like, wow, see, there we go. They got you guys. Whoever commented that, I want you to know that I went through 86 pages of Xbox Wire articles to track the whole entire year. So we got plenty of stuff to talk about here, Gibroni. Don't worry about it. Of course, this is the kind of funny

games cast each and every weekday. together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in the video game landscape live on YouTube, Twitch, and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please consider supporting us with that brand new kind of funny membership for just $10. You can get the very best of Kind of Funny available on Patreon and on YouTube. You'll get all of our shows exclusive live as we record them. You'll get to watch some ad-free.

And you'll get your daily dose of Greg Miller in a very special show called Gregway. Well, Greg gives you a very day. daily vlog about his life and has some fun. Of course, if you'd like to be part of the show, you can super chat with your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Some housekeeping for you. Of course, you've already gotten kind of funny games daily. Is there a possible new PlayStation handheld on the way?

They talked about it. And then later after- Copy an Xbox. Copy an Xbox, he says. We'll talk about the Xbox handheld hopes and dreams in this episode. But of course, coming up later, Mike and Nick are dropping into the war zone to continue to get better at Nick's favorite game. If you're a kind of funny member,

you'll get today's Gregway later this afternoon and also a very special episode of the kind of funny happy hour. If you're on Patreon and you're part of the Happy Hour, too, you'll be able to call in, tell us stories and hang out with the crew this afternoon. Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers who help keep the lights and mics on.

Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining, thank you for your support. Today we were brought to you by Shady Ray's and Our Frames, but I'll tell you all about that later. get in the topic of the show. Tots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, today's topic of the show. We discuss Xbox's 2024, the awesome, the fun, and the bad. Paris, before we dive into month by month,

and we talk about all the games, we talk about the stories, when you look back on this year, 365 days, 2024 of Xbox, what's your thoughts, what's your feelings? Infusing. Again? That sums up this year for me with Xbox. It's confusing. And not that it's confusing in 100% bad way.

I mean, there's good as well. There's good and bad. It's mixed. But it's confusing. And it comes back to what I think is a common theme with Xbox. Communication on what your plans are. It is crystal clear. Their business plans have changed in this calendar year.

And I think the way that they've communicated those changes has been confusing. Look, I know I got egg on my face because I can remember. being at Dice and calling in when, you know, Phil had the, Phil, Sarah, you know, did the thing with Tina, you know, Matt Booty was there as well, about the business update, right? And I'm like, ah, this isn't going to be a big of a deal. I remember saying that. And I look back now, I go, no, actually it was a big deal. Because they're changing. Xbox has changed. Xbox is not what it was just two years ago. It's crystal clear where they're headed. I mean, I'm sure we'll get into it as we talk about this,

but I just think the messaging has been confusing overall. I personally think they're looking long term to where the future of gaming is going, but how they're getting there in the short term just has been confusing. That's all. I like that, Paris.

Confusing. That's a good one right there. You have me a little confused when you first said that because, yeah, I don't think I'm confused. I think I'm more understanding of where we're going and it feels like this year was clearly the year of like now we are definitely turning the ship and we're moving towards

that and the goal of where they want to be is where I want to be as a gamer I'm excited about that right having my games anywhere that I want to play them paying for a subscription service where I can play on the cloud console PC buying the games if I don't want to go off the subscription service getting a console

or a PC or in the cloud so like there's a lot of options that are like at the end of the road but this year right here I think more of layoffs and I think of a lack of games. You and I talked about it before this show, but we're going to get into it here when we talk about first party titles

and what really moves forward the ecosystem and makes you want to say, oh, I should not buy a PlayStation Nintendo Switch. They just didn't seem to be there. And I think there's a lot of discussion to be had once we dive deeper into that one. But, you know, I think I'm more on the side of, okay, it was just a year.

I don't think it was good, bad, or ugly. I think it was just kind of right down the middle of the line. year for me on this one. I mean, I'll disagree on that. Like I said, I think the messaging is confusing. You sure in the short term. But I think what X, I think this has been the year where Xbox has definitely set

themselves up for the long term. I don't even say from a game standpoint, sure, what we got from their first party in 2024, you know, has been, you know, somewhat of a mixed back. Your mileage of very on Hillblade 2, stuff like that. But I go back to June and that's, and I know we're going to go down in the months, but that June showcase, special showcases they've ever done in my opinion.

And then when you look at what, because I'll take this back to the year before when Phil was on with us. And he said it then. He goes, I can see it. But you're not going to basically, you're not going to believe anything I say until we actually prove it. That showcase was that first step for that.

Because I was like, okay, I see it now too. Right. and we can go from there. But the game-wise, light for most of the year, but here we are at the back end of it, we're getting stuff for sure. And like I said, we'll get into it.

Let's go month by month, Paris, and we'll stop wherever you want to. We'll kind of talk about it. Of course, I want the audience to help keep me honest. Please fill in the gaps if I miss anything. It was a big year to try to track and read back on all of this stuff. But we kick off in January. And once again, they follow up,

just like last year with an Xbox developer direct January 18th. We got to see Indiana Jones, avowed, our history untold, of course, Hellblade 2, and Visions of Mana were in there as well. That show continues to be a positive to kick off the year, Paris. Oh, yeah, yeah. I like that a lot. Yeah, now it's a tradition, like we're expecting going into January 2025 to see something similar.

So, yeah, they did a good job at the one this year. Of course, Avowed will talk about throughout this discussion, but that did get moved onto 2025. So, you know, seeing that early in the year and then having that kickback, I think was a miss on the teams here because we talk about the lack of games throughout this year. A Vaud would have been a nice fill in, but giving the team more time to make it better. I know you have done plenty of interviews and got to see the game.

So we'll talk about the positives from that. Well, yeah, we can stick on Avowed for just a second. Yeah, I mean, bummer that it got delayed out of this year into early 2025. But we did get to play it. We've played a vowed. We now know what a vowed is because I think even when I did get to talk. We actually got to talk to Carrie Patel twice this year because she came on Gamescast along with Gabe earlier this year as well. But getting to talk to her a couple weeks ago, I mean, that's what I said to her.

I was like, now I understand what it is because I go, you talking about on the podcast, seeing these trailers, I still didn't 100% understand what the hell avowed was. Now I know what it is. And I'm definitely excited for it. when it does come in February. And to see the progress that that game has made from, we obviously had the initial reveal in 2020, it clearly changed. Then when they re-revealed it,

you know, it was like, whoa, this is vastly different what's going on here. To now see it, what we got to play last week, visual upgrade to it. And it's looking good.

The combat feels good on it. So, I mean, despite it not being a 2024 game, we now know what a vowed is in 2024. So it's good. and we're going to get it pretty soon, like literally in like two months. I like that.

One of my highlights from 2024, PAL World releases on Game Pass, January 19th, the biggest third-party game launch ever on Game Pass. That took over the world, Paris. I loved Powell World. I had all the great times with my friends, and that was a great way to kick off the year hitting Game Pass as well. What a solid game right there. You know what?

And I know we, I'm pretty sure we talked about it at some point, too. I just could never get into it. I tried. I could not get into it. Perfect, Paris. That was such a good game right there. And then at the end of the month, of course, keep me honest, January 25th, I have Microsoft lays off 1900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees as the merger begins with

Activision Blizzard King coming into the Xbox and Microsoft umbrella. We had that to kick off the year with those layoffs there. Yeah, I mean, and obviously layoffs at any juncture in the year is always always. is going to be a bummer. So to see the year kicked off with with a bunch of people losing losing their jobs, you know, never good. I mean, you know, hopefully, you know, the majority of them have, you know, found other employment or landing on their feet, you know, successfully. But I mean, this is the one thing about all these acquisitions that, you know, we talked about it over the years when they did acquire Activision. I was kind of like, yeah, we got to start

pumping the brakes on this stuff because when you consolidate, there's just, there's always going to be layoffs when you consolidate, you know, especially that big of an org coming, coming into Microsoft and Xbox. So, and I know we'll talk about even more layoffs as we continue in a year, but yeah, it was a bummer to see. Of course. February, we have Halo TV series.

Season two kicks off February 8th. Paris, I fell off after we saw Master Cheeks, grace the screen in season one. I did not watch season two. I will say I got some mixed reactions. Some people said they didn't care for it. Some people said, Mike, you got to give season two a try. Did you watch it all with season two?

I did. I did. And I was fortunate enough. I actually went to the premiere for it in Hollywood, got to meet to cast, the whole thing. But to your point, I thought it started off very strong,

but it just never captured what I wanted from Halo. A lot of creative decisions that just, to me, did not make sense for what is Halo that they put into the show. So, I mean, you know, now it's been canceled.

So unfortunately, we'll never see them get to the Halo ring and where it was going to go next. But, yeah, it just was unfortunate. It was a bummer, especially when you compare it to some of the other video game adaptions that we've seen in recent time. And I know we'll get to one here in a second. But, yeah, it was a bummer, unfortunately. Yeah, that was a bummer, pairs, because, you know, Halo is one of my favorite games of all time. I love that we're getting some really dope video games onto the Silver Screen and TV Screen adaptations. and it is frustrating and it sucks that Halo the TV series, the movie,

everything that we had announced so long ago and the road to get to this, it just never landing on its feet. That one was unfortunate there. But some positive for you, talking about a little video game movie crossover, Microsoft Flight Sim got a free Dune experience February 13th. If you didn't play this, you missed out because this one was an awesome little movie tie-in to add to Microsoft Flight Sim.

Yeah, I may or may not. have been associated with that one but now that was cool the ornithopter did the whole the whole thing with dune obviously the sequel came out great great film um when that release and had that tie in with warner brothers um the cool thing that i'll always take out of that is i got to go to the set where they do that whether they were doing that in um in budapest and just awesome i sat in the ornithopter so that was a cool thing but yeah i mean i'm sure we'll talk more about flights in as we continue but yeah, hey, you're going to team, you know. Yo, thank you.

Look, look, some technical issues we're having right now. I'm going to talk about that, yes. Yeah, yeah. For that one, that was a major, hey, shout out to the team. That was so much fun to be on a rackus, flying around the spice, moving that ornithopter around. That was really, really cool. Shout out to that.

That was a great time. Then we moved to March. So first two months, pretty fast and furious. We moved to March. We got an Xbox partner preview on March 6th. We got to see 14 games from Unknown 9, Frost Punk 2, Tales of Kanzara Zau, and

more. So another nice little, hey, bump up, let's promote, let's market some of these cool games that are coming with us, with our partners. I like that one as well. The more Xbox mini events we get, I like those a lot. Yeah, I like that one, because if my memory serves me, correct,

because I love those partner previews, because that was the one where we got the altars, I think. Yes, that is correct. We saw that. Yeah, yeah, and I've been lucky enough. I've met the voice actor for that. Him and I, I can call him a friend now.

He's really cool. But I'm excited for it. I know that got delayed until early 2025. I think that's February 2, I think, which that month is sounding crazy at this point,

but I love the concept of it. Yeah, that one was cool. Again, Xbox does a fantastic job with these partner previews. I'd like it because it's spotlight games that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle if you tried to put them in the June showcase. Of course.

And then we end the month, March 28th, Diablo 4 hits game, pass. So that was a big deal, of course, jumping on to game pass. We start to see this slide of Blizzard Activision games starting to finally hit game pass after the long awaited. When will they? What are these games going to look like? A nice to see the bump there ahead of, of course, the Diablo expansion that we'll talk about later on in the year. But that puts us into April, which kicks off on a big positive note. April 11th is the Fallout TV series releasing. I believe it's eight episodes and it was a hit, Paris. That was a.

a great show to watch. Oh, absolutely. And again, I feel like I'm name dropping. I hate to do this. But I got to go to the premiere for that as well out here in LA. And I got to meet the whole cast for that. So it was that was that's what we're talking about with Fallout. That was Fallout to me. Getting to see that, that series, like I'm excited for season two because it felt very faithful to what the franchise has been.

And for them to properly adapt that into a TV show was great. you know, the whole premise of it, the actors involved all of it. It was fantastic. So, yeah, that's how you do it. So if you bring Halo back, do it like that, please. Do it like that is right. I encourage all of you to go check that out over on Amazon Prime. That was fantastic.

And see some people out in the chat. Don't forget throughout the year, I'm going to tell you month by month, what happened in the Xbox ecosystem. At the end, I have the full wrap-up of all the first-party titles. I have some Game Pass mega hits that I want to share with because I know a number review wrote in when I asked, hey, give me your 2024 Xbox in review. You all shouted out GamePass and number of the games. So I went down the list of throughout all 12 months and gave you some of my favorite games

because there are some fantastic games and Game Pass. But that'll give you a little preview of, hey, if you want to get involved in the conversation, make sure to get loud in the chat, even super chat to get involved as well so I can read them off. April 16th pairs, here's a fun one for you. Grounded, the fully yoked edition comes to PS4. PS5 and Switch, the big update, of course, along with Xbox as well. But this was the first shift that we got to see Xbox first party titles start to go off onto other platforms.

Yeah, and Grounded is such a great project because I want to say it started off with like 17 people at Obsidian working on that. And to see how it went through the stages of early access and just built itself up into this full on survival game. And to now, like you said, it's expanded to other. platforms as well. So it's a fantastic game. It's great. Grounded it is fantastic. This will go down as one of my favorite survival crafting games of all time. I think what that team did in

the backyard with the theme and then of course most importantly, the story that kept you progressing and moving through the backyard will always get me. I find a lot of these survival games are of course early access and you kind of jump on when you're in and you see what kind of content they have. But this team did a really good job

of adding the story into the game and keeping you moving forward. And the backyard was so much fun, from spiders to bees to ants, even more. So yeah, the fully yoked edition added a lot of big updates for all of you to go out there and enjoy. So make sure to check that out if you haven't already. That was April 16th. April 25th, Fallout 4 Next Gen Update came to Xbox Series X and S. This is when the Fallout craze was at its all-time hype right there, pairs.

We wanted a remaster of Fallout 3. We wanted the new Vegas remaster. We got Fallout 4 with the next-gen update. So that was nice, but a nice little touch for the fallout fun. And then we ended the month with the IGN slash Xbox or ID at Xbox digital showcase. Another great way to showcase those indies and teaming up with IGN for another year, I believe was a lot of fun to end the month there. Yeah, my dog's barking.

I tried to go on mute. No, no, I agreed. Yeah, it was great. I'll just say this on the fallout part because remember Greg had the interview with Todd Howard. He can't, it was around that time, I'm pretty sure. But he didn't 100% say that they were surprised by the success of the TV show to start up enthusiasm again into Fallout because obviously a lot of people jumped into 76. I did. People jumped on the Fallout 4 or all of that.

It was again almost a bummer to hear that they didn't have something ready to go that was new, even though, again, they've done a lot of updates and the work they're doing in 76 is fantastic. but to your point, I was hoping they were going to announce like a Fallout 3 remaster or something, right, to kind of re-engage that. But, I mean, we'll see. Hey, look, Fallout with that show and the potential of what they'll be able to do with 76 and hopefully Knock on Wood will get a new game as well, standalone Fallout game.

Yeah, I mean, that franchise is going to be around for a long time. I will comment that the live audience is piping up right now. They're saying that the fallout next gen patch completely ruined the game. They weren't pleased with that destroying a lot of their mods. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, but that's all fixed now. Yeah, but when it originally came out, you're correct. It did break some stuff.

Now we go to May. And we got two big stories coming out of May. Of course, May 7th on my birthday. Xbox announces the closure of multiple studios, Arcane Austin, Tango GameWorks, and Alpha Dogs from the Bethesda World. they also had one studio merge in to the ESO team. So four studios closing, three of them fully closing, one morphing into another studio.

But two big names there, of course, Alpha Dogs. We didn't get to see much of if you weren't a mobile game player. You would probably know them more. But Tangle GameWorks coming high off of high-fi rush. That was a big one pair. And Arcane Austin, of course, with Redfall. Two big studio closures there. Yeah, it was.

Just quick correction on the mod stuff from Fallout. out. Yeah, when I was talking about they fixed some of the performance stuff, but I know some of the mod stuff still isn't fixed. So there's still work to do on that. But to your point, again, all these layoffs, I mean, it's just, you know, when we said it at the time, I'll say it again. And I understand now, hey, you know, some some things have happened. But to see Tango close the way that it did when, you know, Hi-Fi Rush was such a breath of fresh air, this is a bummer. And I still don't, I think even with the company wind up buying Tango, right? So Tango still exists. but Xbox doesn't 100% own it anymore,

but it doesn't sound like we're going to get a high-fi rush too. So that's still a bummer. But I'm glad that the studio itself and people that work there can stay employed. But yeah, the Arcane Austin going away sucks. It just flat out sucks. And it sucks that, you know, Redfall clearly attributed to that. There's no way around it. So, you know, they made prey, obviously dishonored stuff like that.

And it's like to see that studio go away and to know their lineage, I mean, just sucks. I mean, you know, it's again, the unfortunate thing about where the industry is right now. And I know it's slowly starting to recover somewhat. But, you know, to see people lose their jobs and just studios just completely go away, you know, it's not good. Not good. Not good for the industry. Not good for us as gamers. Yeah, that one was a tough one there, Paris.

Of course. Tango GameWorks was unfortunate coming off the high of high fire. rush. You know, I was such a mixed bag of emotions that day, Paris. I can still think of it. I woke up thinking, okay, I understand this from a business perspective. I try to put it in my mind of like, oh yeah, I get that. I get the game style. Maybe I can see the future on why you would pull back on this. But creatively, I don't like this one. I think that team really knocked it out the park. I think they had a lot of potential there. And moving forward as a gamer, I like tie-fi rush. I had a lot of fun with that and seeing

studios like that get shut down no matter if it was a critical darling if it hit the metrics that you wanted to no matter what it's like oh man that really sucks to see teams like that just gets shattered so quickly and so that was unfortunate for me on that one. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Let's move forward

on to May 21st. We get our first Xbox first party studio team coming from Ninja Theory. It's Hellblade 2 sitting on a Metacritic of 81. Paris, I was very high on this game. I had a lot of fun with this game. I was blown away with what that team over at Ninja Theory did with the tech, with the audio, the visual, the story. I enjoyed the combat. I really felt

like this was a step up from number one. But surprisingly, when we were here on the table, I was surprised that the kind of funny crew didn't like it as much as I did. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I was one of those people where I ate from what Ninja Theory was able to do visually, and I was obviously from an audio experience, phenomenal. I was bummed, especially like with the puzzle elements. I just thought that stuff was just way too simple to do. The combat, again, your mind is may vary. I know some people enjoyed it. Some people didn't. I was kind of in the middle on that as well. So I thought it was, I'm glad that I experienced Hell Blake 2. But I will fully admit, knowing that that was the very first game that we saw for this generation from Xbox. Yes. And what we ultimately got,

I can't help but be somewhat disappointed by the final product of it for everything that I just talked about. I was definitely expecting more. But at the same time, I'm glad that Ninja Theory got to make the game that they made. Hopefully they can take some lessons learned from Hell Blade 2 and we get a Hell Blade 3 because there's clearly more story to be told there. And I want to see more of that story. And again, and I don't even want to try and screw her name up. but the voice actress, the motion capture actress for Sinoa. I mean, she got nominated for the game awards.

I said it then, I'll say it now. She should win. I thought her performance was phenomenal. I like that. Really, really, really good. For everything that she had to do, she had to carry so much in that performance, right? Psychosis, all of that.

I just thought it was so good. Really, really good. Yeah, this one, fantastic. I can't wait to see what Ninja Theory does next. It'll be very interesting to see what the next choice is. Is it a Hellblade 3 pairs? Where do they go with this? But the tech, the team, the creativity, they got it all.

And I'm on board for anything they want to put out. Freaky as it can be. I'll jump right in. So I'm all in on that one. That rounds out May. And man, do we have a big second half of the year to get into? And I can't wait to dive in to the big Xbox game showcase. But I'm going to leave you with a teaser because we're going to come back to that right after a word from our sponsors.

This episode's brought to you by ORA frames. Like a lot of people, my mom is not the most tech savvy. So it seems weird to get her a tech-adjacent gift, but ORA's digital frame is actually perfect. That's because, yes, it's tech, but it's so easy. Seriously, it's so easy to get started, but then once you do, the tech is incredible. You can upload photos right from your phone in just a click.

It'll even pair photos together for me, like two pictures of the same person or from the same day. There's no memory cards or USBs required. Most people that kind of funny have ORAFraMes at their desks, and it's always so fun to see what memories they have displayed. It is such a great gift for your parents or grandparents, and you can even surprise them with their gift being preset with your own pictures. For a limited time, you can visit AuraFraFrames.com and get $45 off or as best-selling Carver Matt Frames

by using promo code Kind of Funny at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Fra-Frames.com promo code Kind of Funny. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so don't miss out. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Shady Rays. Get ready for this holiday season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends at Shady Rays have all of your gift-giving needs covered with premium polarized shades that won't break the bank. Durable frames and world-class optics for all outdoor adventures.

With an extensive array of styles and colors, you're bound to find the perfect pair of Shady Rays. sunglasses. Y'all know I've been outside in the sun, a lot playing Pokemon Go, and it's always such a great experience wearing Shady Ray's when I'm out and about looking dope. Every pair of sunglasses is backed by lost or broken replacements. If you lose or break your pair, even on day one, they told us they will send you a brand new pair, no questions asked. Exclusively for you listening right now, Shady Raise is giving out their best deal. Head to Shadyrays.com and use code kind of funny for 50% off two or more pairs of Shades. Try for yourself the Shades

rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Shadyrays.com, use code, kind of funny, for 50% off two or more pairs of shades. Welcome back, everyone. We're looking at the second half of the year kicking off with June for our Xbox 2024 year review. And we kick off June on June 9th with, of course, the Xbox Game Showcase and the Call of Duty Black Op 6 direct.

Ooh, what a combo there, Paris. I'll tell you what. I love what they did the year before with the Xbox and Bethesda Games showcase plus Starfield. I love that we are now the Xbox game showcase. Everything's all in one and I loved that Black Op 6 Direct. I was so pleased with this one.

Yeah, it's like I said at the top I think this is the best. If this isn't the best, it is in the top two or three best showcases they've ever done. I know there's recency bias that I have, but I just think about the lines, the games that we got to see

I got to see Joanna Dark. I now know where perfect dark is. And it's so funny, I just so happen to have watched it again yesterday. And I'm like, man, I can't wait for this freaking game. This is going to be good to see Fable again

and to see how good Fable is looking and them getting what makes Fable, playground games looks like they're knocking it out of the park. You know, we saw South of Midnight gameplay. And obviously I just saw it again here a couple weeks ago. I mean, looks great. And then to your point, you know, Doom, Doom is looking good.

Oh. Obviously, you know, the call it the Black Op 6, Dev Direct that we got, I mean, that, you know, and I'm sure we'll get into that more as we continue. But that just sold me on this year's Call of Duty as well. I'm like, oh, wait, okay, okay. Treyarch's doing their thing here. You know what I mean? So it was good because they set up the future.

And then obviously they had everybody about to cry in the theater with Gear Z day. because I'm like, I'm like, is that dumb? Oh, so good. So freaking good. So yeah, this was a, this was a good. This is what Xbox needed, especially with, with all the, like we said, the confusion at the beginning of the year with the four games going multi-platform and what does that mean? Everyone panicking. Xbox is going third party and all that, you know, cats and dogs living together hysteria.

To then go, no, no, no, no. Look at all these games that you're getting. stop stressing over where the games are going to go, because they're still going to be on an Xbox console. You're getting these games. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, that's what they needed to do. So, yeah, they delivered a very strong message,

you know, as Xbox Game Studios, Activision, Bethesda, that here's who we are, here are the games that you can expect over the next few years. So I was very happy with that. Totally agree, Paris. This was their Beck's Xbox game showcase out of all the summers they've done. This was so much fun. This had game after games. game. This had the roadmap of where we're going to be going, what games you should be looking

forward to. We have classic games that you know and love like Gears of War. We're going to E-Day. We're going to bring you back to that. It was fantastic. Doom the Dark Ages looks unbelievable. You know, you have a vowed. You have Diablo Vessel of Hatred that was this year. Yes. You had Microsoft Flight Sim, 2024. You had World of Warcraft, the War within. Just sprinkled in there to say, we have games this year as well. And then we can look to the future like you brought up with south of midnight that jumped right off the screen. How great was that?

And then I forgot about state of K3, state of K3 as well. I mean, like I said, they had a ton of stuff that they showed in that 90 minutes or two hours or whatever it was that I go, wow, Xbox is definitely, you can see the investment over the past few years of what they've done. It's going to start paying off here. And a game like Clockwork Revolution, which wasn't even there we know was also coming.

You know what I mean? So it's like they got some stuff. for sure. And then I think the other part of this is they reaffirmed Game Pass. Because I don't remember at the time, there was a lot of speculation about Game Pass and what is that going to be? Oh my God. Are they even going to put Call of Duty in it? We don't know. And they literally kicked the show off of Call Duty game pass. Day one. Don't worry about it. We're good. Everything that we saw is in Game Pass. So they're reaffirming that the service that they've been curating over the past few years, here's where it's starting to pay off.

Here's where you can expect all these games day one coming over the next couple of years. So, again, I thought it was a great job. What a great showing. It's going to be hard to follow that one up. I can't wait to see what they do this summer. I'll tell them right now, hey, you knocked it out the park this June. I'm looking forward to what you bring next June

because it is always a big yearly event. All of us gamers come together. We get to celebrate awesome games, the incredible teams that make them. And Xbox, you put out a great one this year. Good luck on that. year. It's going to be a whole lot of fun to see. Oh, yeah. But great games. And then, of course, June 12th, right around the corner,

we had Fallout 76, Fallout 76 Skyline Valley drop, a nice little small expansion to the map, some new story mode in that one. I know me, Joey, and Greg all played that and stream that for about two days straight. We had a ton of fun with that. That was a nice addition and very cool that they add on to the map that it is, not an expedition where you go out to the pit and, of course, Atlantic City with their other stuff. It was cool to see them adding onto the map. That was pretty awesome. Yeah, that was awesome.

I actually got to meet, me, Jonathan, the creative director on that because I went out to Xenemax in London to go see it early and get some hands on time with it. That's what I was saying before. It's, you know, 76 isn't going away anytime soon. They're going to continue to iterate on it, continue to add content on it. Like, even though it didn't come out this year, we're getting the ghoul. It's going to be a playable character that's, you know,

know, 76, like I wasn't someone that was big on 76, honestly, until the TV show. That's when I started playing it. And yeah, man, it's, it's great. And to find out that people were nuking Phil's camp and all that stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They were mad at Phil for a little bit there.

They were coming after, fallout 76 is right. No, but you know what? You know what, though? Because we saw him at the June showcase and we're joking around about that. He actually said people do that to him all the time. Oh, I bet. That isn't a new thing. Yeah, he's a target.

We move on to July. And July had a really fun one for me because July had the Valerent console beta hitting on July 26. Oh, yeah, that's right. And I'll tell you what I love and adore Riot Games, League of Legends. I've always loved that world that they've built. And Valerant has always been that intense tactical search and destroy shooter that I've been very bad at, but I love playing with my friends and the idea of it coming to console

and having that beta run and now just being out where people can play it, that was a great time to get together. And I'll tell you for that first week, Paris, before everybody got good, I was killing the game. I was one of the best in the world. And then July 29th,

the Xbox 360 storefront shut down. After years of running, we finally shut it down and said no more. You know, RIP, what a great run. and, you know, I think of the Xbox 360 as being a young adult, you know, going from high school into my early college days. And I remember them introducing the storefront and buying games for Xbox arcade and all of those moments of, those moments of, am I going to start buying games digitally? What does this look like? I didn't really get the digital library until the Xbox one.

But I do remember introducing the storefront and being wowed every single moment of what that looked like and how that evolved. Yeah. We moved to August. August 8th, we had QuakeCon where we got to see Doom 1 and 2 come to Game Pass and then Doom Eternal went to the Epic Game Store. So that was a fun little old school one.

And QuakeCon still running, doing great. I love getting the cool QuakeCon and I believe it's the Dallas Animal Shelter Support T-shirts. They got the awesome Doom characters, but they're cute animals. And you can go out there and help support a really great

awesome cause. I love buying those. Xbox at Gamescom August 21st. Shout out to the marketing team and the creative team. They made the Coachella mini lineup for their Gamescom weekend. I loved that. Shout out to that making it look like an EDC festival with all the games they're showing games you can play. But Xbox at Gamescom continues to go and I believe it was their biggest booth space that they had ever there. So good for them. Yeah, that's what they said. Yep. Yep. And then they did a cool thing for for us that could not go to Germany they kind of tried to recreate that experience in

Los Angeles so we got hands on well like everything that people could get hands on with in Germany were able to get it hands on in LA so that was like my first time playing about as an example I also got to play Adam Fall there that's a sneaky one that a lot of people aren't talking about that's coming out I think March of 2025 really enjoyed playing that as well so yeah yeah it's it was good games come for them and then they obviously preview Indiana Jones. I remember you and I did that digital preview of that. You know,

we didn't get hands on at the time. But at opening night live, that was where we found out that Indiana Jones is coming to PlayStation 5. And I will still say to this day, look, I get it. It's not. And I have a rant about this is Xbox.

So we need time at the end for this. But I understand that message that, them doing it that way wasn't for us. But to see them make a big deal about it going to PlayStation at the very end, I was like, wow, really? That, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. I would love to have a conversation to understand why they did that.

But, uh, yeah, it's PlayStation. And I think what, what do they say, spring 2025? Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh, on August 21st, we also had pre-orders going live for three new Xbox series X and S console options. so opening up that ecosystem with a little more console variety for you. And then we get another follow-up to the Xbox first party titles that will add to our list.

August 26th, World of Warcraft, the War Within, does drop as the next big expansion for that game. Metacritic at 85. Paris, I don't know if you've sold your soul to World of Warcraft like I have over the years, but did you jump into this at all? No, absolutely not. I learned a long time ago. I don't play that game because I get addicted. Oh, man. I wish Gary was here because Gary,

Gary always looks to me like, Mike, I had to put that away a long time ago, and he knows that I would poke him to come play with me because I adore this game and love World of Warcraft so, so much. So great to see another expansion. We'll talk about the 30th anniversary live stream that they had just recently with even more World of Warcraft announcements for all of you out there.

So we'll talk more about that. But then at the end of the month, We had the Call of Duty next event down in Washington, D.C. that I got to go to. We got to showcase Call of Duty multiplayer with zombies, traditional multiplayer and Warzone, and then the announcement

of the open beta for two weekends in a row for Xbox fans to jump into. So a great way to end the month and kind of start ramping down summer as we move into September there, Paris. Pause real quick. I just have to say, and I told you this

already, but you at Call of Duty next watching you in your element, I was your biggest fan. Thanks, Paris. I was watching it all over. I was your biggest fan. Dude, you, you freaking killed it. That was so awesome to see. Thank you, Paris. I love you and I appreciate you so much. And I appreciate all of our audience here at the kind of funny audience, you guys, the best

friends have always been so great to me and especially Nick with Call of Duty Warzone and the team at Activision Xbox for sending me out there. That was a dream come true. And it's been very cool to see the live audience on this podcast, you know, celebrate that, but also celebrate you pairs when you've been talking about all the cool things you've done with the Xbox. People have said, we love seeing pairs working with Xbox, doing all the cool stuff.

What a dream come true for all of us. So thank you for that. Yeah, you're going to. Look, look, I have the pause just in general, because I know we're getting to more stuff. But, bro, I just have to celebrate you for a second. Oh, let's do it. The times that we've been able to hang out this year, because, you know, we did the, when I know we're going to talk about the flight sim stuff, so I'll just put this in here now. When we went to

the Grand Canyon for the flight sim, and then, you know, you and I were at Trey Ark, you know, to go see Call of Duty zombies early, stuff like that. And bro, you just, watching you in your element is just the best thing ever. Like at one point, we were at the Grand Canyon and it was like the after afterwards. So everyone's like the little meet and greet hangout thing at the end. I just stood off to the side and I just watched you move, bro. I just watch. I'm going to Mike.

Look at Mike doing this thing. Just shaking hands and kissing babies and doing this thing. What a blessed life it is, man. I'm having so much fun. And yeah, get me a hat. I sat three hours in the sunshine and called duty next and loved every moment of it. Let's go to September because things continue to get good because here's a game that I really enjoyed and got to play. Age of Mythology comes out on September 4th, sitting out a Metacritic of 83, 22 years since the original launched.

Wow, what a fun one there, parents. As a kid that grew up with Age of Empires, 2 and beyond, I never played Age of Mythology and then getting the retold version with the upgrades jumping in that, you know, my live stream audience was like, Mike, give it a try. I had so much fun. I was surprised. I didn't know what it was going to be. And I really loved what age of mythology was.

And I, a blast game. Great job. Yeah, they did. They did a great job on that. And another cool one. Another great RTS coming to console. You can play on your controller. They've dialed that in.

You know me. I'm a big RTS fan. And I keep preaching about how great they've done with bringing these RTSs over to console and making them so usable on the game pad, the controller. I'm always blown away when I get to sit with cool developers and they explain how they've made all these incredible movements with your mouse and keyboard and put them on a controller. Man, you guys are incredible.

Thank you for that one. No, absolutely. Yeah. Here's a cool one. I don't know if you got to play, but on September 9th, Elder Scrolls Castle came out to iOS and Google Play the mobile game. Did you play this at all? I did not.

No. Okay. Okay, I had a good friend, but my buddy Washi, who had like a week straight of nothing, all he would talk about was Elder Scrolls Castle. So shout out to Elder Scrolls castles. I didn't get to play it, but, you know, a follow-up to fallout shelter in the Elder Scrolls world, I should have played this because that's, I'm always looking for a mobile game. That should have been me on this one.

And then September 10th, we have Towerborn hitting early access. Paris, did you jump into this one? Yes, yes. I've actually been playing Towerborn in early access. And I actually got to play it with the lead game designer and the CEO of Stoic a couple of weeks ago. I'd put that stuff on my channel because they got a new update that just came out here in November.

And they added a danger level five to it and ramped up the difficulty for sure. But the loot and the stuff that you're getting out of there and the cosmetic items really good. It's a fun game. And I'll take this moment to pause on this just to say because when I first played Towerborn was at LA Gamescom. and talking to them then, that was around the time the news came out. Yeah, because it was gamescom.

So that was when they said early access was only going to be on Steam. And not an X. A lot of people in the Xbox community were not happy about that. So I had asked them. And they explained why that they're slowly trying to ramp this up. And this was a decision that Stoic made Xbox just fully supported them on what they wanted to do. Because, and again, I talked again with the CEO about this when we were playing a couple of weeks ago. And it's just like, hey, we want to be able to, as we're getting community feedback changes,

we won't be able to iterate it on it quick. Can't do that. Trying to do it inside Xbox is like trying to steer a battleship, right? So it'd be slower. They're more agile being able to do it this way while it's in Steam. And then when they get to 2025, they are going to open it up to Xbox. And then, you know, a huge influx of people are going to come in. And they can obviously ingest that feedback at that time.

So they knew ahead of time, they were going to get a lot of, you know, know, they're going to a lot of people that were going to be upset in the Xbox community because it was at one point in, you could play it on Xbox, and now you can't in this early access phase. But when it comes back, trust me, it's a fun game. I think we were going to really enjoy that co-op experience in their planet. All right. I'm looking forward to it, Paris. I have not dove into the early access period of that.

You know, I have a great crew here at kind of funny games. I would love to get me Nick and Andy, maybe even you streaming that. So one day we're going to jump in, but I have not played this yet. I'm looking forward to it. And then, Paris, one thing that still confuses me, and I wish I had more time to dive in. Of course, on September 10th, we had the announcement of Game Pass standard being introduced to the mix. And then we got into some different levels. I think you and Gary talked about it one day on a Games Daily.

But this is when we introduced, like, the new wave of what Game Pass will be in a new offering here. I'm, okay. So this is like where I sang the praise of the Game Pass earlier. This is where I'm still not a fan of. I think, again, the messaging around this is somewhat a little, not someone confused. It's a little confusing still. Because essentially, let's just keep this real. Really, there's Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

Standard is there, but standard, I can't imagine the adoption rate is high on that. I feel it's kind of overpriced for what it is. Okay. You might as well just upgrade to Ultimate at that point. You're getting way more. You're getting day one releases. You're getting, obviously, the EA play stuff. of obviously now the games that you own in the cloud you can play with ultimate as well.

So there's just way more benefit to being an ultimate than standard because you don't get day one releases. Some of them you might have to wait 12 months before they show up into standard. So it's not like oh three months or six months later they're showing up. No, you might have to wait a year to play perfect dark in standard game pass as an example. Right. So I'm not a fan personally. That's just me personally. Again, someone's the way smarter than me can explain decisions on why they did this, but on the outside looking in, I'm just kind of, really, almost feel like it's there to just say you have it. But really people should just, because they got a price increase.

So ultimate is 20 bucks a month, stuff like that. So really that's, that's really game pass in my opinion. It's ultimate at 20 a month. Yeah, I've gone over to the website because I did need a refresher on this one. So yes, on PC, you have PC game pass. And then of course you have Ultimate, which then incorporates both. so you want to definitely jump into the Ultimate on that side or just a regular PC.

And then console, there's three. There's the Core, Standard and Ultimate. Of course, I'm on Ultimate like You Paris. I like Ultimate the most. You have Standard and Core. Core is that catalog of over 25 high-quality games on console. That was what replaced Xbox Live Gold right there. Yep, I remember that.

And then Standard. So, yeah, continuing to, I mean, I think we're going to see this over the next couple years what they do. I think we're seeing that with all. the live, you know, streaming services of price increases, trying to figure out what works from ads to hike to HD quality and not, you know, so I think we're going to see this a lot here, but no family game pass yet. I think they're settling in and trying to figure out where they want to be, but ultimate still is the way to go at $20 a month, but is it getting too high

pairs? When will be that tip-off point? We've talked about it. We're getting close because I remember we talked about this at the time. I mean, I almost don't want to say the number because maybe they were like, hey, let's do that. That's what they'll pay. But when you get probably around 25 a month, I think at that point you really got to start questioning it.

If it's worth the value of it, unless you're a hardcore gamer and you're consistently playing all these games that come out and Xbox and keep up with the demand, you know, month over a year over year of providing you a consistent cadence roadmap of games that are coming to the service. I think that's the key, and they obviously know that.

And then again, this is why they're acquiring Activision. This is why they got to Bethesda, because they know you've got to have games that people want to play consistently in that service or they're just going to unsubscribe. Keep it moving here on September 12th, Microsoft announces 650 employees to be laid off in the gaming team.

So I believe this was the, as of right now, the final layoffs that we've had, the most recent layoffs in the Xbox Microsoft Division there. And then we go to September 24th. Our history untold is released sitting at a metacritic of 74. Paris, have we jumped into this one? Yes. And I've, and I even got to interview the team over at Oxide as well when the game was coming out. I'm a fan of it. It's had some technical issues, which I think have led to the lower score that you see in the 70s. But I mean, if you love, if you love Siv, you love like a city sim builder, ours for you.

I think it has a long-term potential. They just had some bugs and things to iron out. And they're obviously listening to community feedback about things that people like and don't like. And they've already started to do some of those updates. So, you know, hopefully as we go into 2025, people, you know, give a shot against on game pass. So worth giving a shot. I need a kick in the butt for this one similar to Towerborn. But this one really speaks to me as I was on a big SIV run as Greg got to announce Siv 7 with the SIV team over at a Pax.

West, I believe, but I was playing a lot of SIV getting ready for our history, I'm told, and I've not jumped into it yet. So I need a big kick in the butt, because this is the game that's probably going to speak to me, and I'm hoping that it's going to be a really fun time. I haven't jumped in yet. Then we go to September 26th,

Xbox at the Tokyo Game Show. Of course, Final Fantasy 1 through 6, HD remaster of Legend of Manna, Trials of Manna, and Catamari Re-Rroll all come to Game Pass, so a big fun Tokyo Game Show. Again, another fun Xbox beat there around the globe to see them continuing to work. They're always at Tokyo Game Show, which is great.

Yeah, yeah, and they seem to just be growing that because it seems like Phil and Sarah have been there every year of the past few years. And, you know, they definitely make sure their presence is known there. And I'm happy to see them get a bigger footprint into the Japanese market as far as bringing more Japanese-centric games into Xbox because I think that is neat as well. And then we finished them on September 30th, Starfield, Shattered space comes out. Metacritic, 62 on this one, Paris. I am surprised at that number.

I did not jump into shattered space. I think Greg would come out here and yell up and down about how much funny he had. Yeah, let's not do that. I am surprised. No, I haven't, you know, I haven't played it either. And I keep saying I'm going to play it, but it's just like we're at that time of the year where there's just, there's a thousand other things going on. So I've just not found the time yet.

But I was, I was a little bummed to see, you know, the lower review scores on it. some of the complaints about it, but I need to try it for myself. Of course. Then we're moving to October, October 6th. We had a fun one pairs. 343 Industries turns into Halo Studios and they announced that they're switching engines from the Slip Space Engine over to Unreal. Very exciting announcement.

More Halo projects in the works. Of course, we got to see some later Halo infinite fun updates with some game modes and cool maps from Halo 2. But the big announcement, of course, Halo Studios is now the name parents yeah yeah um i thought this for for the future of halo i thought this was the right move to do hey love it hated whatever three four three is associated with some of the bad with halo now it just is i mean you just look at the history of three four three it's not been great so this is almost like let's get a fresh start here they're moving to unreal five which i think again is probably the

right move for them you know to be able to get halo content out quicker and faster and you get more people into the studio that are familiar with that engine, right? I like I said, I think this is a good thing. I think the future of Halo, I mean, we know the 25th anniversary is coming up in 2026. So it'll be interesting to see what they do. Obviously, we saw some models of what Master Chief and the elites are looking like in Unreal

5. I thought it looked good. You know, there's obviously been rumors about potentially them doing some kind of remake with combat evolved. I think that would make sense if it was ready for the 25th anniversary of the game. But a question I have for you, Mike. Tell me, pass. Would you be okay if Steve Downs was no longer the voice of chief?

Because, I mean, he is in the 70s now. So he's getting up there. So at some point, it's probably going to have to change. Look, I think it'll be weird because obviously I've been there since day one since 2001. But at some point, they're probably going to have to change. to do it. Dang, Paris, that's crazy. I didn't think of that. And I got tears in my eyes thinking about that now because, yeah, we are getting to these moments where, you know, people are getting up there in age and it's time to move on. Paris, I'll throw right back at you. What if it's not about

Master Chief anymore? What if we move on without Master Chief? Oh, wow. That was Halo. That was Halo Five. Bad, bad idea. Okay, okay. Yes, Paris. It would be tough without Steve. I mean, that's the world we live in now. It will be exciting to hear a new voice and a new role play but it's interesting that you say don't do that halo always master chief then here no here's what i'll say about halo since we're on that i think you still need a core halo that involves master chief and cortana on the same level right but i do want to see other stories told in the halo universe you can spin it out into other characters things like that obviously the the whole battle royale rumor that we heard about forever i'm okay with that kind of stuff okay but i think you

but I think Halo needs to still be Master Chief, at least for a while longer. I still think there are stories to be told with Spartan 117. So I'm not ready to go away from that yet. I love that. Let's keep it moving because we have a little more show to go and we don't want to keep you all here too long. Diablo 4, Vessel of Hatred,

that brand new content expansion comes out October 8th. So you had a Meta Critic of 84. Man, I love me some Diablo 4 and I love more content coming over there, Paris. Did you jump into this one? Yeah, I played during a, during a review cycle and I enjoyed it. It's just, it's time, man. It's like trying to figure out enough time to play all that stuff.

That's something you need to invest time into. Oh, Diablo wants your life to. And you know last week on Friday, we had Zanth from the Pure Diablo podcast on, who was absolutely incredible when it comes to action RPGs. And he got to talk about and get us all excited about the preview from path, our path of exile to and like, oh, snap, how do I split my time between both of these games now?

it's going to be so much fun to play all of this. So very cool stuff. Then on October 17th with the Xbox partner preview, again, with Allen Wake 2 Lake 2, Animal Well, Subnotica 2. I'm so excited about Subnaica 2, but that happened on October 17th. So another fun Xbox partner preview.

Yep, yep, it was. And then October 28th, my favorite day of the year right here, Call Duty Black Op 6 released, Metacritic of 83. Absolutely a fantastic. Call of Duty entry, one of their best in a long time, one of their best to date, in my opinion, a full package. Prestige. The normal prestige is back. Call of Duty zombies has been fantastic.

Call of Duty multiplayer has been a ton of fun with the grind and prestige returning. Omni movement has been awesome. A great implement, a great way to add on to the gameplay and make it even smoother and fun. I loved the campaign. I thought the campaign was one of their best. And then Call duty war zone. I mean, Area 99. I've been playing it all week long. I can't stop playing it. This has been a banger.

Call duty Blackop 6 was a banger. I loved it. So here's the funny thing about this. I'm going on to my third prestige, I think. But the last couple weeks, I've just been busy traveling stuff. So I haven't played a lot in the last couple weeks. We got to get together for Warzone. I've not touched you yet.

I want to do that with you. I'm looking forward to that. But the funny thing is, I have not played campaign at all. yet. And I'm hearing that campaign is on fire. So I got to play it. Oh, Paris, you got to play the campaign. In my opinion, one of their best, if not top three, top five. So it's a must play. And then, yeah, we got to get in the war zone. I'll link up with you. We got to find a date because I can't stop playing Call of Duty Warzone area. But that, hey, man, I'm having a blast with the multiplayer domi movement stuff and all that. So I, again, this, this is one of the best caller duties I've played in a long time, for sure, on the multiplayer front. They just added ranked modes.

so you can play the CDL stuff, which is great. I don't love 4V4, but it is fun to get sweaty and ranked. I really love gunfight, the 2V2 mode. That's one of my favorite modes in all of Call of Duty history. So, yeah, great stuff. Go play it. What a good one. Now we get into November.

And then November and December will breeze through here. But Starcraft 1 and 2 hit PC game pass on November 5th. Dang, am I about to start playing some StarCraft 2? Because I'm a Warcraft 3, dude, and I've never played StarCraft. except for StarCraft 64. So like, am I jumping into StarCraft 1 and 2? Maybe, ladies and gentlemen. Do I need to hit up Alyssa and then she becomes your guide in StarCraft too?

One of the very few video games that she actually played a lot of. Let her know, tell her to come to the studio, what afternoon with me, we just played StarCraft all day. That would be great. Paris, StarCraft, what do you think? No, thank you. Okay. I don't need to get sucked into that.

I'm not doing that. Another fun, cool beats. You had the World of Warcraft 30th anniversary direct on November 3rd. 13th. They talked all things, World of Warcraft and the Warcraft world. I mean, they got a roadmap for all of you. I hope you check that out. I hope you're celebrating. Crazy thing. 30th anniversary, that's wild. Where has the time gone? I've given it all to World of Warcraft. It's been so great. And then we go to Microsoft Flight Sim, 2024, November 19th, Metacritic, still TBD right now as scores come in. But Paris, I'll be real with you. Not the smoothest launch.

coming off the tarmac here today. I was bummed by that because, you know, we obviously went out to the event, got to talk to the whole team. They talked about the reasonings for going to this cloud streaming structure, you know, because you don't want to have like 200 gigs trying to install on your machine constantly.

And it made sense, but obviously the launch, the demand behind it, they weren't able to keep up with it. And I know there's still some fixes already. It's playable. You can go play it now. But, you know,

they still got some work to do. So rough launch, but hopefully, you know, your going to that team will get all that figured out pretty quick. Yeah, I really hope so because when you and I had the time of our lives down in the Grand Canyon and getting to play it and do some of the things, I was so excited. And I was excited to share moments with Nick.

Like I said, I brought up the Dune experience, but they also had, you know, top gun before where you got the fly and go mock 10. Me and Nick shared such an awesome moment there, having fun with this game. And so I really hope that we get that all ironed out. You know they will. The tech behind it when we saw at Paris at that presentation, was wowing. It was crazy to think what they're doing with the cloud and how

they bring that to your console and PC and not have it be 200 gigs as you say, but still give you this incredible stuff. I'm really excited to see once this is really dialed in what it looks like. It'll be great. Yeah, same. November 19th was also the day that we got the Minecraft

movie trailer. Did you see this? How much fun was this? Great stuff. I loved it. Yeah, I mean, look, I think it'll be fun. They know what they're trying to be and they're not So I think it'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah, Minecraft movie, put it down, Barrett.

Could be a good movie. Will I fall asleep in it? Maybe. You said the morning it came out, you're like, guys, I'm thinking Super Mario Bros. Movie level. A movie that we were quick to point out on stream when we were talking about the Minecraft movie,

the Super Mario Brothers, a movie you also fell asleep in in the theaters. And you said, when you woke up, great movie. They got me with the yearning for the minds. That was great. And the rest of that trailer is like, all right, this is a kid's movie. Oh, it's a kid's movie.

It's going to be a great time. And I have some shoutouts that I'm going to give at the end. But the Minecraft team, I'm coming for you with a big shoutouts. So be prepared because y'all deserve it. Then we ramp down November 20th. Stream your own games with Xbox Cloud Beta. 50 games are ready to go. Paris, the dream is almost a reality of having my library of Xbox games that aren't just game-pass games,

being able to be able to be streamed anywhere. Very exciting stuff. Yeah, I'm glad that they finally were able to get this rolled out. And I've, I tested it last week to see how it works. Works fine. You need to be a Game Pass ultimate subscriber to be able to use it. But the fact that games that you own that are not a part of Game Pass are not able to play. And we know that that list of 50 games will grow over time.

It's a good thing. It doesn't hurt at all. You know, this just goes with the marketing campaign that they just rolled out. This is an Xbox. You know, they're expanding this out. It's a part of it, right? So I get it. Happy to see it.

That brings us to present day, of course, December. We're looking forward towards Indiana Jones, but that will ramp down your 12 months of Xbox news, headlines and big announcements. We're going to give you a quick little ramp down. Then we'll give some scores at the end of all of this. But again, I want to give a big shout to the Xbox Wire team who brings you all the blogs, all the news postings.

Went through 83 pages from January 1, first to today to get all that news for you on those headlines. So that was a lot of stuff to keep track of. But let's go over the first party titles one more time, Paris, because it is an interesting year. It reminds me of another year that we did before where we said, man, what a quiet first half of the year. And then a jam-packed second half of the year.

That's what this year felt like, right? Hellblade 2 on May 21st. Then we didn't get a next one that I could track for Xbox First Party until World of Warcraft, the War within in August. we went to age of mythology, Towerborn, our history untold, Starfield shattered space,

Diablo four vessel of hatred, call duty black ops six, Microsoft Flight Sim, 2024. Of course, we had a bunch of ESO updates. We had Fallout 76 Skyline Valley. You had Sea of Thieves 11 through 13.

Hey, shout to the Sea of Thieves team. They did some really cool stuff with the Sea of Thieves sandbox with those seasons that deserve some love. Overwatch got a whole bunch of cool crossover content. They had the World of Warcraft, content. They had Cowboy Bebop Paris, which was cool. They had

My Hero Academia. Recently they announced that they're going to OG Overwatch, which means 6 v. 6 again. So you got some cool stuff with that one. You had Halo 2 maps coming to Halo Infinite. So a whole lot of content there, and we still don't have

Indiana Jones on that list. So Paris, that's your first party run up. How do we feel about that? Like I said, I think very late, obviously, the first half of the year. but I think they're ending the year on a pretty strong note. There's a variety of games across multiple genres, which I think is important to have that variety there.

I mean, you know, some some new releases, obviously some D.O.C.'s expansions as a part of that as well. But overall, I think I think Xbox is ending the year very well. Very well. And they need to continue that as we round the corner in 2025 and just have it be consistent moving forward. and I think they'll be fine. I agree with you, Paris.

Ending it very well. Here's some fun extra stuff that I tracked. Of course, new controllers everywhere, Paris. You got vapor controllers, fallout-themed controllers, Arctic Camo. You got the Sky Cypher controllers. You got the whole Cypher series, which was the cool see-through ones that came to the Xbox, elite controllers as well in Design Labs. You had the Xbox and X-Men 97 console and controller crossover, which was red-hot,

if you remember that. They put it on the cool old school toys, cardboard, and everybody had their own cardboard box. That was fantastic. We had the X-Men, or we had the Deadpool and Wolverine booty controllers. Big old booties on those controllers. Fantastic. We just recently had the Xbox at IHop-themed menu and glasses crossover.

Someone sent me those I-Hop glasses. I got to find an I-Hop ASAP and try that. Did you go to this, Pairs? Did you go to this Xbox I-Hop event? I did not. But I know someone that he was invited to go. Actually, I need to ask him. I need if he mind I'm going.

But yeah, yeah, I didn't go. I know Andrew Renee Wintz will have to ask all about the fun. Well, Danny, that's what I'm saying. I know Danny got invited to go. Yeah, yeah. And then rounding out the extra fun stuff. This is an Xbox ad campaign. Of course, Barrett brought that up.

We just recently saw that. That was a lot of whole cool stuff right there for you to have some fun with. Then some shoutouts for Xbox Game Pass because I want to highlight you, the audience, when I asked you on Twitter to please send in your thoughts on the year. Those green guys all over Fortnite battle royals like Call of Duty Warzone. You've seen the green guys on TikTok before. They wrote and said, game pass. They absolutely killed it this year, including Call of Duty, got to try so many new games

that I never would have played. Lise of P is one of my all-time favorite games now. All of my friends who are still on console, come play with us in Call of Duty. Found Lords of the Fallen was actually an awesome game. game as well. So shout to those green guys highlighting game pass, which Paris, I went through every single announcement of game pass. And I pulled out some of my favorites. Man-eater, the shark RPG, the shark PG. Love that game. Bluey the video game for Greg Miller and Gary Witta. Crash Bandicoot insane trilogy. Mafia definitive edition. Flock. Shout out to flock. What a great game

that was. I loved flock. Very cool. Kinitzugami, Path of the Goddess, neon white. Octopavler Traveler 1 and 2, moving out to humanity, another crab's treasure, Manor Lords, which was a fantastic city game with PC preview. MLB, The Show, which continues to shine. Shout out to that team over at Sony, San Diego. MLB, the show, is that game. Go play it and go check out the storylines, please.

It's so freaking good. Control, Stalker 2, Metal Slug Tactics, called duty Blackop 6, Seifu came to Xbox. Did y'all know that Seifu came to Xbox? Come on now, y'all. Some great game past titles I had to share with you, Peres. No, again, I think they're on the right track with this stuff, man.

I think we're getting to that point where we're getting the proper cadence of first-party titles, indie titles, and obviously third-party games coming into the service to keep me playing. That's the whole point. Come on. Keep me playing games. And I know we're running out of time because, like, I had old, whole thing. Give me some more. This is Xbox. But no, we got more. Hey, look, I got an appointment

like five minutes. I got to go. Okay, then we got to do this. My final shout-outs for this one is the Minecraft team. Shout-outs to the Minecraft team. You've done an insane job over all the years, bringing crazy amounts of content. When you go through the Xbox Wirepost, there are Minecraft updates left and right. And they do cool stuff, very fun, educational stuff for the kids. Shout to the Minecraft team. And final shout-out, Xbox team, whenever you team up with the New York Liberty in the WNBA,

you all do a fantastic job. Shout out to that fun group. I love when you guys do that. I'll just say this to sum up what I was going to say in a longer context. Maybe I'll do it one day on a video. This is Xbox. The year started off. Just four games has now turned into more games.

There's no more red lines. We know all this, right? I would say to the Xbox community, I would say to the Xbox gamer, the person that loves their Xbox console, because I know you're out there. I talk to you a lot. It's going to be fine.

You see the roadmap of games that are coming. We got a ton of fun-ass games coming the next few years. They got 30-plus studios that are making games now. They are not going to stop making Xbox consoles. You're going to continue to get a next-generation Xbox console. Phil told you a handheld's on the way as well. Game Pass is not going anywhere. Yes, it is freaking weird to think that some of these games that traditionally were only on

Xbox console will show up one day on a PlayStation, we'll show up on the Nintendo Switch, are already on PC, will be cloud streamed. I get it. I think Halo and Gears potentially being on a PlayStation one day is freaking weird. But if you just go ahead and realize that that potentially could happen, you'll be fine because you're getting the games. You will continue to play them. Crossplay is a thing now. No matter what device you're on, you can still play with your friends. It's going to be fine. I love that. Look, it's weird. Change is always weird, but it's going to be fine.

That's all. On a scale of 1 through 10 on the kind of funny scale for the year of 2024 for Xbox, I know it kicked off the show saying it was just a year. Looking back on all of it, my grade is a 7.5, a good year. We had some light content at the beginning of the year. We had some solid content, a lot of expansions, a lot of Blizzard introductions into the world. So I'll give it a 7.5, a lot of great moments. Xbox, excited to see the future.

this year. We had some good. We had some bad. We had some ugly. Can't wait to see where we go next. Thank you to Mikey who brought in with the super chat. Thank you to Michael with the super chat. Jeff Bull. Thank you for the super chat. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get pairs to his appointment and let's go fly with Nick Scarpino in the war zone. We'll see you on Twitch and in YouTube. See you all later. I didn't say mine. It's an eight. He said it's an eight. I said it's seven five.