The Vergecast - Apple rumors, wireless headphones and No Man’s Sky

Episode Date: August 12, 2016

This week on Vergecast, both Nilay and Paul are out so Dieter and Lauren have taken the reins and invited fellow Verge colleagues Chris Plante, Dan Seifert, and Ross Miller to the show. The group discusses Apple rumors, new video game consoles, and No Man's Sky. 1:46 – Apple rumors 25:26 – Wireless headphones 28:42 – Game consoles 47:03 - No Man's Sky 55:36 – Dan's cool gadgets for rad dudes / dudettes 1:03:11 – Lightning round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, and I have to do a cold open? God damn it. All right. Here are some things that are true about the Vergecast. One, it is the flagship podcast of Theverge.com. Two, I am not Nilai Patel, the host of the Verge cast. He is away in Madison, Wisconsin. Three, I am joined by a million people because we're overcompensating for Neely's absence.

And I'm, you know, it's just a lot of work to do this without Neilie Patel. So I am Dieter Bone, executive Irver the Verge. I am joined in San Francisco by Lauren Good, who is not going to say hi. Oh, hey. I was a, hi, I'm doing work. In New York, we have Ross Miller and Dan Seaford. Hi. Hi.

Yeah, and we also have an Austin, Chris Plant. Hello. So you don't get Nilai, and because we don't get him, you get a million people. We are spanning the continental United States. That's how big his personality usually is. Yeah. Here's one more thing that's true about the Vergecast. Typically, Nelai starts by reminding you that the Vergecast is sponsored by a fake vodka that he made up, Cizzer Vodka, cut through the night.

And typically, we laugh and joke about that. But let me tell you the real truth. Rock beats scissors. It just does. And when Nelai is not here, we're not sponsored by Cizzer Vodka. We're sponsored by Rock Scotch. Rockscotch. Smash through the morning.

Damn it. I was going to do a new Cisor tagline since he's not here. Oh, what's your, what's your Cizzer tagline? Just run with it. No. That was the... I enjoyed that.

So I brought along this giant panel of people because there's a giant amount of stuff to talk about. But we're going to try and keep it relatively focused. And I think there's really no place to start other than Apple. There has been basically a mass. massive pile of rumors that have landed in the past week, week and a half. And I think it's time we talked about him. A bunch of stuff came from Mark German, who's now over at Bloomberg.

I don't know. Where do you guys want to start? Lauren, where do you want to start with Apple stuff? Start with iPhone. With iPhone. All right. So the big rumor is what? There are about seven.

We'll start. No pun intended, but a five. This is just going to be the show of Dad Jokes. Brought to you by Dad Jokes. Deeter's wearing a lot. a dad joke's t-shirt right now. Just kidding, I completely made that up. I don't know what that.

Okay. So we've heard, let's talk about the most persistent rumor that the headphone jack's going away. But we've well covered that. Can we talk about the headphone jack the entire time? I don't know if we've actually talked about the headphone jack enough. Really? Well, so the new twist, the new thing that everybody's trying to figure out right now is what are they going to put in the box? Like John Gruber is worried about this, Thomas Ricker over on Bert.

just worried about this. Like, what are they going to put in the box? What's in the box? A dongle. You think it's dongle? A dongle? Really? Wait, wait, no, that's not, that's very un-apple.

Let me tell you, my bet is they are going to put a lightning version of ear pods in the box and then sell a dongle for $29. Right. And also the premium lighting earbuds beyond that. Sure. Dongle's got to be $19. Yes. The premium ones will be like beats lighting.

So the case of Thomas Ricker made is that you can make a, you can make a, pair of Bluetooth headphones that pass the good enough test for like 30 bucks. Well, yeah, they're totally commoditized. Like if you look at Amazon, they could stick Bluetooth headphones into the box. They could put earbuds in the box. They could put crappy earbuds in the box. But I mean, they already do put crappy earbuds in the box. So let me tell you something. I use those earbuds all the time. No. Why? Do they fit well in your ears?

Yes. It can't be for sound quality. So it's got to be fit. Let me tell you why. I like having a pair of headphones in my back left pocket all the time. so that if I need a pair of headphones, I don't happen to have my better headphones on me, or I don't have my Bluetooth headphones that are kind of big,

or I'd not have my in-ear headphones that I like. I know I have a pair of headphones on me, and the standard Apple earbuds are great for keeping in your pocket because they're plastic all the way through. There's no, like, rubber part to get mucked up by sitting in your pocket with lint. And so you can just pull these things out,

have them, use them, and they're the only headphones with a microphone reliable enough to actually work with the Mac's headphone jack. So you know the microphone's going to work. So you don't use them for listening to music. You use it for taking calls all day. I use it for like emergency headphones.

I can attest to the fact that he's wearing them right now. These are different. These are the in ears. Oh, yeah, they are. Wait, so what are we talking? Even from like the design standpoint, we know it needs to be like small. Why would Apple make a small wireless Bluetooth earphone that has a remote or something that lets you do that has the microphone and presumably has some way to charge? Oh, well, I think what we're saying is the ones that would come in the box would be lightning.

Yes. Enabled. So not Bluetooth. They'd be neck buds, right? Okay. Oh man, neck buds is so on Apple-like. Yeah. I mean, like, you can make cheap neck-bud style Bluetooth ones like Thomas mentioned for like 30 bucks, right? But Apple wouldn't make neck buds.

I mean, I find it really hard to believe they would. How could the company that designed the iPhone 6 battery case and the hockey puck mouse ever creates something as ineligent as neck buds? I don't believe it. I refuse to accept it. You didn't get, let me get to the other. half of this point is that they will make a fully Bluetooth headset, whatever, whether it's like the, whatever it's called, it's escaping my name, the ones that don't have the wires between them that are all the range right now.

But they're going to sell those for like two or three hundred dollars. Air buds. And then you get in the box, just a cheap wired set that all they did was rip off the 3.5 millimeter jack, put a lightning jack at the bottom and called it a day. Like they're going to be ear pods with a lightning jack. There's just like no way that's not the case. Profit margins, man. Got to protect the profit margins.

Well, yeah, and also just from a consumer perspective, I think getting consumers adjusted to yet another, like, format change is a big enough deal. Also getting millions and millions of consumers to suddenly adopt Bluetooth or wireless headphones when they haven't yet already. Although, although I think in the last quarter, at least in the U.S., wireless headphones actually outsold wired headphones for the first time, according to, I think it was the MPD group. But still, there are a lot of people that use wired headphones. So I think, like, if you're going to change one thing, you can't change everything right

away. I think consumers would freak out if Apple was suddenly, like, you have to use Bluetooth or wireless. There's also one reason why it absolutely can't be neck buds, which is how would they put it in a box? Like, can you imagine Apple trying to design packaging for those stupid neckbuns? They would spend three times as much time trying to find an elegant solution for that box, and they would actually spend making those headphones. It's a box, but the box has to spend it.

wings and those wings are where the rest of the neck button goes. Don't question. Just fly with it. All right, we've talked about the lack of headphone jacks like ad nauseum, but I want to talk about this new... I was trying to make a joke, Dan. I'm sorry. Home button.

Unapologetically horseshoe-shaped boxes. Force touch home button. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about that. So the force touch home button actually makes me think of a number of Android phones that have described what we're talking. What we're talking about is a home button that isn't an actual physical button anymore. It's like the track pads on the Mac where when you touch it, it's pressure sensitive,

and then there's a little tap-dict gigaw that taps back at you at the right moment. So it feels like a button, but it doesn't actually move. It's like 3D touch. In my beautiful dreams, this means that they've gotten rid of like the last moving part that is keeping them from making it waterproof. Keep dreaming. Well, we don't think it's waterproof anymore. I don't know.

Did we think it was waterproof before? No, but I'm saying that like now it's on the table. I suppose. I don't know. This makes me think that of like, you know, there's a couple of phones that came out this year. There's HUC's 10 and the 1 plus 3 that have a home button that doesn't move. It just senses when you touch it and it unlocks the phone and it vibrates, you know, so it knows that. Yeah, but the general like overall vibration is dumb.

They've got to do the thing that they do on the Apple Watcher on the Mac where like it feels like it's tapping you back in that precise spot. Right. Yeah. No, definitely. Assuming they can, you know, miniaturize it that small. whatever, but, you know, Apple's got to figure that out. So we're expecting this stuff to hit on September 7th seems to be the date that everybody's sort of, that's my birthday.

Landing on. It's like what German had. The other thing you said is that the MacBook Pro is not going to be there. What? I know. Jeb Bush won't be able to upgrade his entire fleet all at once. Oh, wait. We didn't talk about Apple Watch 2 either.

Oh, yeah. All glass, but that's a 2017 rumor. Yeah, right? Tell me that's right. Yeah, 2017 is when, so there was a leak, I think, earlier this week that one of the suppliers has been working with Apple to make an all-glass phone. So no aluminum, just glass, can't wait for people to shatter that thing. Sapphire can't get no respect.

Sapphire is a Roddy danger field of materials. But there are all kinds of speculations, some of which I talked about on CNBC yesterday, there's like total speculation, by the way, about what this could possibly mean. and it could be like it's more immersive like we're seeing with the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. It could be that it's good for wireless charging. It could be that it's better for connectivity because

There's no way they're doing wireless charging. I don't know. There's like all the, like everyone's like why would it go all glass? I don't know, maybe because Samsung makes mostly glass phones and it's leapfrogged Apple in terms of product design. Yeah. I mean Yeah, I mean

We've all held Like who here has held a note seven I have Raising my hand That you can see it Who here thinks that the note seven Is radically better Than the iPhone 6 in terms of design

I really like the note 7 I do Right I really like the note 7 It's just way better So yeah They got to do something And if this

If the rumor on the iPhone 7 Or I'm sorry The iPhone 6SE Like isn't that something That's floating around Out there To iPhones Oh yes it was

But now there's not gonna I don't even know. Okay, so so max Apple watch we didn't talk Apple watch whatever he wants so it's like GPS faster processor yay I don't care but same design so it's like yay and I'm like inside like my heart's a flutter over the idea of GPS. Do you think that they're gonna be able to put a battery in there that'll actually be good enough it's gonna have to be a pretty thick watch would be my understanding the rumor is gonna be like slightly thinner but use the same lugs to hold the not lugs what do we what do we call the strap attachment? Well normal people call it

them lugs, but I don't know what Apple calls them. Normal they call them lugs? It's the strap trench. The strap trench. We should call them like hitches. Winches. You yoke the thing to your wrist. They should create, oh, that's a great idea.

They should create one that has a winch. And when you want to put it on in the morning, you just slide it towards you. Hitches and lugs and yokes aside. Is that they're going to come out with, the rumor says that they're going to come out with a new version called the Apple Watch 2 or whatever. that'll have that GPS similar design to what they have. But they'll also, and a faster processor, but they'll also update the old Apple Watch

with the faster processor and still sell that for a cheaper price, which doesn't make a whole ton of sense to me. I actually think that makes great sense because look at them basically what they did to the iPhone SE, they said, here's this phone, this old form factor, but we're going to put a faster processor in it, and people went eight. But isn't the whole promise of watchOS 3

that it is so much faster without, hardware upgrade? Yeah, but... All the limitations are staring us in the face. What I really want is a watch that has a screen on all the time. Yeah, I mean, like... They can put enough battery in the thing to make the GPS work. Maybe they can put enough battery in a thing to, you know,

make me not have to, like, spin my arm in a 360-degree circle to see what time it is. I think there's already enough battery to do that. Like, if you wear an Apple Watch every day, what do you end the day at? 40, 35%, like when was the last time an Apple Watch died in a full day for you? Uh, yeah, it happens like one. every couple of weeks. Really long workout, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like, I feel like there's a lot of, they're using Amelette screens already. There's a lot of other watches on the market that use Amelette screens and last all day with their watch on, with their face showing a, you know, low-res display or whatever. I don't know why Apple couldn't do it and still haven't watched it last most of the day or all day.

I have a question. I'm still wearing a smart, yeah, go ahead. Do you think the reason your Apple watch lasts all day is because it is purposeless and doesn't, like, do anything. Because you're not wearing it and it's sitting in a drawer. Like, that seems likely. I mean, I don't know. I'm no tech expert.

I'm just the side show. Oh. Side show, Chris. I've got a question for you. Do you wear an analog watch or digital watch or just non-smart watch? Me? No, because I have a phone. If I want to check the time, I look at, like, the phone.

But how do you? How do you subtly let somebody know that you're bored with this conversation? I know, seriously. I've been trying this for podcast. But Chris, how do you quantify every moment of your life, every heartbeat, every step? That is a good question. I have accepted that I will value you on. I've taken 8700 steps today.

What have you done? I don't know. I wrote a bike for 20 minutes. I'm a grown man. I'm not going to make a grown man writing a bike joke. Not going to do it. What's the joke? that's why I didn't do it

okay there's no joke there that's a good reason not to do it that's a very good reason not to tell a joke doesn't exist we can talk but I'm not buying an iPhone 7 right this will be the first iPhone I don't buy what if they do the dual camera on the plus or pro model

oh so yeah so if the if the plus gets the super fancy camera described us what the purpose of the dual camera is on the iPhone 7 plus you want me to take Sure. Yeah. So, according to the rumors, it would take two pictures or take the same.

Both cameras would take the same picture at the same time, and then their data would be blended together for a better quality image, which sounds like similar technology to what we've seen on, say, the Huawei P9, which has a like-a-branded camera, but it takes two images at the same time, captures more data with two separate cameras, and then blends them together into the final result. So it's a certain possibility. So what is each lens doing? What's the main lens and the secondary lens doing?

One takes red and one takes blue. In case of the Huawei, I believe one takes a full color resolution image. The other one takes just the luminance. So it's actually almost like a black and white image. But the software blends them together. And because it can capture more detail in just the luminance side of things. But that gets really deep into like camera image processing. But what I mean is it doesn't sound like,

the iPhone would have a dual camera system like, say, the G5, which had a standard width lens and a wide angle lens, that it switched between depending on how much zoom you wanted, or the HGC Evo 3D, which made a 3D image because it had two cameras. So this isn't like a camera that's going to work with 3D modeling. Did you already card? Did I miss that? No. I was zoning out for a moment. So I'm admittedly, I met with this startup recently that it's not fully launched yet, but it's in beta. And they're doing some really cool stuff with like 3D modeling.

You know, you put your phone, you take an image of a room, and then it just creates this stuff around it. And anyway, I won't get to do many details yet. But they said, you know, like using something like Project Tango, they can do really, really cool stuff with 3D modeling. And so when I hear dual camera system, that's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah, it sounds like this wouldn't be a similar use case. It doesn't sound like it. It doesn't sound like based on the rumors and, like, you know, smoke and mirrors information that we have so far.

It sounds like a Project Tango type of device would have multiple cameras and sensors and stuff like that and can map out spaces and isn't really great for photography. It's designed for other things. I would think that Apple would just lean in really hard on the photography side of things. Because they certainly can't lean in on the music side of things. but um yeah uh okay uh

routine i'm not i'm not gonna get it this will be the first iPhone I don't know wait are we missing rumors though do we talk about the MacBooks that won't be coming

no we gotta get like so I gotta say I'm using the the MacBook MacBook the little 80 bitty MacBook the most recent one and man I'm on like I'm on enough video calls often enough now where it's like

I made a mistake this can't handle it Zoom or Google Hangouts are too much for this thing to handle. And so I'm like, oh, yeah, it's time for a MacBook Pro. And apparently it's not going to appear at the September 7th event. Don't know when it's going to appear.

And the rumor is it's not actually going to be tapered. It's going to be like standard block of Mac. And it's going to have that OLED touchscreen strip, which I'm, if they do it right, I'm ridiculously excited about. And if they do it wrong, I'm pretty, like, meh about. If they do it right, it will be truly customizable. And not I have doubts it out. It would be like an art levitt of keyboard.

Right. Did I say that name? What? No, it'll just be a strip at the top. It won't be the whole keyboard. No, no, but like the concept if it was customizable, because it would like change, right? You could, the display would change based on what you set it to.

Yeah. You can say, I never use these buttons, but I use this one a lot. And so this one's going here and I'm putting this one here. And really, if like, do you look at the iPhone as a model, which probably isn't the best comparison. and it's not especially customizable. I just wonder who's actually asking for this. Like, I'd rather have a thinner, lighter MacBook Pro.

I mean, how much? I don't think the OLED strip adds that much. Like, I really don't. No, I mean to say that, but, like, if there was areas that I would rather Apple spend its time and focus on improving, I'd rather have a thinner, lighter MacBook Pro than an OLED touchstrip on my MacBook Pro. That's all. I'm still team battery.

Don't care. Like if you're buying a MacBook Pro, let it have a longer battery life. Oh, no. A little bit thicker. I've looked around a 15-inch MacBook Pro for two years. Yeah, well, that's on you, man. That's still a terrible battery life. Team 13-inch laptop forever.

That's the way to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I have a 12, whatever. It's the secondary. I'm reading this now, and I still, I guess I don't know why we would have an OLED touchbar. Yes, exactly. So I can show you a cute Siri animation. So you can have a mix of function keys and other things.

Does it have custom emoji? Dude, if it lists by eight favorite emoji all the time, that'd be great. Touch ID fingerprint reader, potentially, on the MacBook Pro, which would be really cool because you could just go buy stuff and be like, boop, buy it. Because Apple Pay is going to be such a huge smash hit on the web. Everybody's going to use it. Well, there's that. Dieter.

Deeter, the room is burning. Buying stuff sucks. We're going to have to exit this podcast taping shortly. Do you think that they'll get rid of the headphone jack on the MacBook Pro? No, there's no way. This is a strange question. There's no way, right? It'd be crazy.

I still don't understand why the iPhone, next iPhone, the one that's coming next month, doesn't have a headphone jacket. If the design isn't any different, it's not any thinner, it's like, what, what, why? Why? Why doesn't it have it? You know what's ironic about the headphone jack thing? One, we can't stop talking about it. And it's just whatever. I'm going to list some phones that, you know, were available when the iPhone came out.

BlackBerry 8300 Curve. Did that have a headphone jack? Yes. Curve line did. It had a 3.5 millimeter. The curve got to 3.5. Okay. The N95 did, for sure. Yeah.

Was it like the Trio 680 that was around that time? that was a 2.5 and that was a disaster. A bunch of the other BlackBerry that were popular at the time did not have headphone jacks. So like one of the things that made the original iPhone

kind of compelling, you could just use it for music with like real headphones. And it's also worth noting that none of those devices were great media players or experiences. Oh, they're all terrible.

So like you didn't really care that you couldn't plug a headphone set into them because you would use an iPod because that was your media experience. And the iPhone changed that whole conversation. The Samsung blackboard. Jack had a 2.5 million later. And then I had an HTC sprint mogul that had the HTC dongle adapter.

What was that called? I don't remember what was called, but it plugged into the USB port. Yeah. Did the Prada? Did the chocolate? Whatever. You know, this is all going to be just a non-topic in the future because soon enough, we're all just going to be wearing giant face computers.

And so we'll be surrounded by sound. It will be in these completely immersive environments where sound will just be patched. I want to know how Chris Plant feels about the loss of a headphone jack. Woof. Am I right? It's stupid. Here's the thing about the dongle that I'll say. I have, when I was in high school, I thought of myself as an audio file, if you will.

And I don't know. Somehow I found out about Senheuser headphones. and I begged my parents to get these headphones. And it was like, oh, it'll be my birthday present and Christmas and everything else in the world combined. And I'll throw in as much money as I can from working during the summer, yada, yada, yada. So I got these nice headphones. And I've had them ever since. But the main output is like what you would plug into a speaker amp or like a nice pair of like the stuff that I use for recording podcast.

So you mean the big quarter inch jack, right? big quarter inch jack. So whenever I want to use it on normal things, I have to use a dongle. Here's the thing about that. I have bought a hundred dongles because I lose it constantly. And I only use these headphones in my house, which means like they go to the phantom zone for all I know, but they still get lost. And like, it's not like, oh, one day I fell like into a surplus of these dongles. No, they're just gone forever. I don't know where they are. And I guarantee what would happen with me and like, I mean, probably other people, I would hope that I'm not alone here, is that if you introduce a dongle to normal people, they're going to lose it. And if the only option, at least at first, is to pay $30 or $20 or whatever absurd price Apple will attach to it.

Yeah, that sounds right. There's no way they do that. If it's more than $2 or $3, like what I can pay for a dongle on Amazon, it's absurd. and that everything about that is maddening to me. I just want to point out that the adapter that Apple sells to turn a micro USB cable into a lightning cable, it's like maybe half an inch long piece of plastic is $9.99. Yeah, so they could tell the dongle for $999. Yeah, because the don't know is going to be longer.

I don't think it's an inherently bad idea to get rid of the audio jack. If there was something that was like magnitudes better, What this feels like to me is like if somebody has a Blu-ray player right now and you're like, you know what? No more options for you. It's time to switch to Ultra HD Blu-ray. I would be like, why the hell are you making me do this? I mean, that's actually an upgrade, right? Because Ultra-H-D is 4K, in theory, is an upgrade.

But you can't use the old Blu-Raes now. But it's only Ultra-Roy. But at least it's putting you forward. You know, getting rid of the headphone jack and forcing you to the lightning doesn't improve your experience. Oh, I thought they were pushing this is like... Well, it might improve the phone. No, the idea is like maybe they'll fit in an extra speaker at the bottom and improve sound. Maybe they'll make the design even thinner.

It's maybe I don't know because I don't know mechanical engineering as well as the people at Apple do. Maybe it even allows room for a bigger battery somehow. I mean, it allows room for things. That's all I know. It's like, all right, let's move this, you know, this, your favorite chair out of the living room now because we're going to make room for something else, even though you're like, I really don't want to. get rid of my favorite chair. That's a really bad analogy.

It's a comfortable chair. I like that. We were all just sitting and imagining our favorite chair. I'm getting real mad. No, you know what? The chair analogy works. Because, like, if I have a favorite chair and they can't even tell me what the new thing is that they're replacing it with, then you're damn well right.

I'm going to get pissed. They're taking my chair. It's a bassinet. You're going to replace it with one of those exercise balls. You're welcome. Classic. to wake you up in the middle of the night. You're not going to sleep for the next 18 years.

You're welcome. That's what they're making room for. So while we're on the very engrossing topic of headphones, Lauren, you reviewed a whole bunch this week, right? Wireless ones at that. I did. I did. Wireless exercise headphones.

They're like, they're not all exercise headphones, but that's what we are focused on for our review. You want me to just keep going? Just tell us. Just tell us which one of buy. I'm waiting for the question. This is my next series. You can find it on YouTube and Theverge.com.

We voted the J-Lab Epic 2s as our top pick for the best wireless Bluetooth headphones you can use for working out. And then our runner-up was Plantronics Backbeat Fit. And the J-Labs are 100 bucks, and the Backbeat Fits can be found online for between 75 and 80. So, yeah, we, I mean, here's the thing, Chris, you mentioned earlier. you used to fancy yourself an audio file. And when we go into these kinds of reviews, we're like, we put the caveat out there in many different ways that this is not about pure sound quality. It's not like, this is the best, the purest, most unadulterated sound that you're going to get from a pair of wireless headphones. But we just look at things like fit and durability and waterproofing

and battery life and just ease of use and say this is what we worked out with and this is what felt the best to us. So there you go. Lauren, I'm guessing that in the course of research and producing this piece that you worked out more than I have in the past 10 years. Yeah, well, I'm not going to, I can't say how much you've worked out, Dan.

But I will say that I worked out at least three times. Probably not much. Yeah. Yeah, I worked out a fair amount. I remember we were actually on vacation at one point, and I was, when I was testing the plantronics at that point in time, and I was, like, getting up in the morning to go work out and use the plantronics.

And my boyfriend was like, we are on vacation. And I was like, I know, got to test some headphones, you know, like, pretty dedicated. That's how I go on vacation and work and get sanded in my laptop and it ruins my keyboard. Do you guys miss Neli? Yes. All right, let's see if we can find him. I bet you that he could take us to the money zone right now. The Vergecast, as you know, is supported by CityCards with Android Pay.

How cool is it that we live in a world where you can use the same device to listen to the VergeCast and buy your morning coffee, groceries, and more. Did I mention that it's a super fast way to pay? Just use your CitigardCard with Android Pay at the register. Get in, get it, and get going. Download the Android Pay app on Google Play or visit city.com slash Android Pay to get started. Android Pay is available for eligible city, consumer, credit, and debit cards. Man. Money making.

I thought we missed Neely, but that was... That was not that special. Maybe we're better off. Sorry, I didn't realize you were going. Go ahead. Can I tell you a secret, Ross, and Chris? Sure. Yes.

I have never owned a PlayStation. Not a single one, never in my life. Not once. Have I ever had a Sony gaming console in my house? Me neither. It's okay. It's not surprising. You know what Splatoon is, and that's what matters.

Yeah, and I've owned every Xbox for some insane reason. every single iteration of every Xbox, but like enough. I didn't have like the, whatever, the Xbox 360 slim. Did you, did you have Sega consoles as a youngen? No,

because I liked playing video games. Whoa. See, I thought that might have been the case because I, as a Sega loyalist, had kind of like a thing against PlayStation,

because it was like the rival. I'm with you, Chris. I was a Sega loyalist. I played my Aladdin, my superior Aladdin, for many years. Well, no, so a lot of people had a Genesis. Did you stick with them to the Sega Saturn, though? Oh, no, of course not. What?

I mean, there's a reason that Sega doesn't make hardware anymore because nobody bought their Saturn and then not the Dreamcast, right? What was the, what was the disc base system that Sega had? I will say I did, was the one person who bought the 32X and a Sega nomad. Was it 32X? What was the actual, like, physical, like, CD-ROM? Sega CD. Sega CD.

Yeah, Sega had this like... Sega was like the original modular concept, right? Because you had the Genesis that sat on top of the Sega CD and then you had this 32X that sat on top of the Genesis. Oh yeah, and you can do them all at once. Yes, you could. It was pretty sweet. Yeah, I got to have that in my life when I was in college

because my roommate had one. I believe that let me get Sonic and Knuckles in all my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog games. I was not? Knuckles Chaotics was on 32X. Oh, that's right. And 32X had a version of the Star Wars arcade game, which was really, really hard. Okay, tell me about this upgraded PlayStation 4.

Just, I don't, we're done with, I trolled Chris, it failed, you all love Sega. Sega's the best. I take everything back. Nobody could ever say anything bad about Sonic, nor his sexual proclivities. You're right, because Sega does what Nintendo don't. What's the deal with Sonic? I just love digging out these 25-year-old video game birds. Wait, wait, wait, Lauren doesn't know about Sonny.

Sonic's Secret Life. What is Sonic's Secret Life? I played Sonic. As an Internet sensation? Sensation. No. Just don't Google it. All right.

I won't. I just tried to... Google... Sonic. I just tried to... S-A-N. I just tried to find old reviews of the original Sega Genesis

to see what people were writing... It's not that bad. ...reviews or like that, and it's impossible to find. Image. Oh, oh, no, San... Yeah, I know Sanic. That's fine. Okay.

Do you need to... Do you need to know about this PlayStation 4 project, Leo? Wait, Urban Outfitters is selling the Sega Genesis. That it's over. It's over. Okay, go ahead. You know how you already talked about the new Xbox on one of these shows?

We have. Yes, we did. Last week, actually. Okay, so that, but PlayStation, I guess, is like how you can think of it. No, but the, it's slightly different. So what Microsoft is doing is this year it released a slow, slightly more powerful Xbox one, which you reviewed and did an excellent job of, I must say. Yes, you must.

I think you had a great idea. You are required by your contract to say nice things about me and what I do. This is also a fact. So next year, they're going to release something called Project Scorpio, which is the beginning of their, I guess, iterative design philosophy that is going to probably look a lot more like what we have with iPhones, where there will be some kind of universal. store and everything will play on every system-ish but the newer consoles will be more powerful and games will look better on them they might have additional features that are only possible

on the newer things and ultimately Microsoft will have the excuse to like try to get you to buy a new Xbox every year or however often they release it so Project Scorpio within the context of that sounds like it's kind of somewhere in between it is going to be more powerful, we think, than the Xbox 1S. But it's not clear if it is Sony's kind of starting for something more iterative. The PlayStation is going to be more powerful than the other. Oh, yeah, sorry, Neo. Neo is the code word.

Thank you. But yeah, it's unclear if it'll be as iterative as whatever Microsoft ends up doing. It will, the idea is it'll play 4K. whether or not it'll actually play 4K games. I have a lot of trouble believing. Wait, why? The GTX, I mean, it might. It might play them at like with low graphics quality options, I guess is what I would say.

That's not quite the right way of phrasing it. Like a low frame rate? The way I look at it is what? Like a low frame rate? No, like, so if you play video games on a PC, on top of like being able to change the resolution, you could say, oh, I want like medium level quality textures or high or ultra or I want this level of particle effects or all these different kind of ways to stress the computer. Do you love settings?

If you love settings, get a PC. You know, I don't even know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's going to go that far. We're going to get in a big fight over PC versus console. I'm not saying it's going to offer those settings. I'm saying to get 4K to run on a consumer grade console.

going to have to make some other sacrifices elsewhere. Because right now, if you play a game on Mac settings on a PC at 4K, even with the top-of-the-line graphics card, there's no guarantee that it's going to run smoothly. And I have trouble believing that Sony, a company that makes money off of its hardware, is going to be able to sell something at a consumer price by next year that does that without making those sacrifices.

So we're expecting this, what are we expecting this thing to actually, be good for because like the one S is the Xbox 1S is like a console. It's like if you don't have an Xbox and you want an Xbox, you should buy that Xbox. But if you have an Xbox,

it will play 4K Blu-R that's not worth upgrading. You should wait for the real upgrade, which will handle VR. Yeah, I don't get... I think it'll do that and I think VR. There's no reason for the... I mean, I think VR is the big thing.

Other than like they needed to make the Xbox one not suck and they did that. Right. I mean, like, that's the S model for iPhones or even like the S-E model. Here's the cheaper version that's slightly better, slightly different. We've refined, we've cleaned up, we've made it a little slimmer. We don't worry about battery life because it's always plugged in anyway. So convince me that I shouldn't just go buy a cheap PlayStation 4 now and not, you know,

like should I wait for the Neo? What's the Neo going to do? I mean, are you the person who's going to buy PlayStation VR? Like, that is probably going to be the big argument for it because powering VR. is difficult. I guess that's my big question around this, is how does VR play into this? Because will VR be work with the existing PlayStation 4? Or is that the big thing that this adds is compatibility?

Okay, so yes. I think one thing for Clarification is like, we don't suspect the Neo's coming out necessarily this year. But PlayStation VR, like, we know that's going to work with PS4. If you've used PlayStation VR and you've used an Oculus, like, it's a world of difference in terms of technical. Like, you can tell the resolution is lower. Like, if you've not done Oculus, it may not bother.

as much, but if you're going down, it definitely feels like a downgrade. So we think that they're going to announce this new PlayStation 4 in a couple weeks, but not release it. Ever. Correct. Ever. I would be shocked to see it on store shelves. I mean, I would not, like, I'll put money on, like, maybe a price drop or something to,

like, spur demand for PS4. I mean, it's already, in terms of, like, console sales beating Microsoft. But just to do something just to, like, mess with them for, like, having a new slimmer Xbox, they may do something to boost sales for the hardware this year. But Neo is not that. Neo is like, this is a tease of what's to come. Please keep with us. Don't worry about that Microsoft thing.

Think you have a good night. Enjoy your rumored Apple event. And we're also going to be having this on my birthday? Yes. Happy birthday. Yeah. Okay. Dan, what do you want for your birthday?

Do you want to work for 14 hours straight? That's what I aspire to every year. It's a nice 14-hour marathon of blogging. Yeah. Guess what? Surprise. Happy blog day. So in general,

with the Xbox 1S, it's like a little bit exhausting. It's a little bit like, yeah, okay, you made a better Xbox. Congratulations, that's the one you should sell for a while. You're not selling the big old tank anymore,

but we're waiting for the new one. But in general, I'm not like sitting here like desiring it. I sort of am not sitting here desiring the PlayStation 4 Neo right now, which is a weird thing. I kind of expected to. Like, it's, like, give me some more excitement and hope if you can. Okay.

Here's, here's what I would say is good about the PlayStation 4 Neo in theory. It's made by the people who made the PlayStation 4. Why isn't it, like a PlayStation 5? If it's, like, not coming until next year, but even. Because it has to. compete with what Microsoft is doing for one. Two, they have to have something that can better power PSVR. Right now, PlayStation VR, from what we understand, uses some really interesting tricks to make it so that the PlayStation 4 can power it. I think that any issues that I have

using PSVR might be because of those kind of shortcuts that it takes. And I think that they'll be remedied by PlayStation Neo. I think at the same time, like, for whatever reason, everybody feels there's this demand for 4K now, and they need to get something out there that, at the very least, can play 4K Blu-rays. I mean, it's Sony made them. Like, they want to have the dominant cheap, ultra-HD Blu-ray player out there. They did it with DVD a long time ago.

They're going to do it again here. They did it with Blu-ray before that. They're right now being bested by Microsoft, which is bizarre. And I think that, I do think there is the possibility that they will have 4K gaming and there will be some weird workaround

that makes that work for some games. Like I said, I can't imagine what that looks like yet. Because it, there's just, there's nothing, like that. It's unprecedented to imagine games getting certified that work on two different consoles that aren't a PC game. I mean, it's just a very different thing to kind of conceptualize

how they plan to do that. But the person who is in charge of that, I imagine, is going to be Mark Serney, who is, I think, exceptionally brilliant and is responsible for most of the great architectural decisions of the PlayStation 4. He's also responsible in some part for NAC. So if you remember that terrible games, we can't give him all thumbs up. Yes, it is like the terrible platformer. Ross got it. No, you really should.

It took me a second. But I think the other part is like, I think, Dan, you're asking why isn't this PlayStation 5? And I think this is now a moment we're like, if Sony and Microsoft are doing what they've been hinting at, it seems like they are. We're now an era where it's not a new console launch. It's a new iteration of the console. They used to use their own kind of custom architecture to get nerdy for seconds, now all X86, same as PC. What they can do now going forward is a hybrid between the old console model and the PC gaming.

You're not going to get a lot of people to buy, like, new graphics cards all the time. Like, that's a great market, but that's not what people do. They will buy a new phone every two or three years. Like, why not do the same thing for this? We know it's backwards compatible. We know this architecture works. you get a little bit better every time. Maybe there won't be a lot of 4K games next year,

but if people start buying that, the one two years from now may start saying, okay, these are exclusive 4K games, maybe they won't call it PlayStation 5. Maybe PlayStation is just that platform now. Right, right. I mean, that makes sense. What that makes me wonder is that, like,

you know, these gaming consoles are still for $500, $600, right? How are you going to get people to buy that every year or two when they're used to doing it every five or six years. So will we see, like, Apple's had a ton of trouble or saw, you know, a head that people are not gonna wanna spend $750 on a phone or upfront,

so they had introduced the upgrade program where you essentially just lease your phone? You know, is that something that we could see Sony and Microsoft? Yeah, I think you actually kind of wanna come at that question backwards. If you look at like people right now already spend $1,600. to get, you know, the top of the line GPU

or like to get two nice graphics cards and SLI them together. There are people out there. Sure, but I think if you look at that market versus the console gaming market, it's like different conversation. Yeah, but then, so they're the same, they're kind of the same thing

in a different way than you'd think. There's, that will be there. Those people will buy that new version. But then kind of like the old cheaper iPhone or older version of a smartphone that is still sold, that will almost serve. happen with the older version of the console. So I think their logic is we can get people

who are like our whales to buy this new stuff, but really the money will be made on reselling the Xbox One, which, or the Xbox One S, which will be increasingly cheap to produce to people who will now buy it at, you know, a $100 discount. Didn't Sony do this years ago with the PlayStation Classic. Isn't that the same concept? I think that was a different thing. It was like a rebranded PlayStation 1 that was cheaper.

Kind. Yeah, I mean, the goal is just to get these in people's hands, right? Like, if you can make consoles and not lose money making it and get them into as many people's hands as possible, that's a good business. And like, this system to me is designed to not necessarily get the best hardware

into people's hands, but to get it into the hands of as many people's possible. It kind of solves the chicken and egg thing, especially the things like 4K. Maybe it won't do all the 4K things, but people need to get it to go forward, and then they can start including it. Or even things like, and this is completely hypothetical,

this Call Duty game works on both the PlayStation 4 and the 4K. It's going to look a lot better on 4K. And in two or three years, they're going to be like, it's only on the 4K. Now that's the cheapest mall you can get anyway, but we've got to ease you into it, as opposed to making these huge, every six years flagship moments.

But then that buying cycle that you're describing is really more similar to television purchases or home appliance purchases than it is to something like a smartphone. Because now it's kind of a given that people are going to buy new smartphones every couple of years. Well, if you're lucky enough to. Well, they want to do that with, they want to do the consoles now is the thing. But people buy a console and they essentially, you know, they buy it and forget about it. And sometimes they don't buy a new one for like seven years. And that's how often you buy a new TV and maybe more like five, right?

But so if people, it sounds like what you're saying is they're going to try. try to sell people on the future proofing idea. Like, listen, if you buy a 4K TV now, it's great because in five years it's going to be super useful. But that doesn't mean I'm going to buy a new TV again in five years. Yeah, I think it's the opposite. I think they're moving from the TV model of like, you forget to buy a new one until literally somebody comes along and is like, you have to buy a new one.

Everything, like me having to go to my parents' house and be like, how do you still have a CRT to me? It's time to move forward. versus like, I mean, there's going to be marketing campaigns every year about why, if you don't have the new version of this, you're just behind the times. And I know, like, TVs do that too, but not nearly in the way the phones or anything else do. I might be interesting. Like, at the same moment that Moore's Law is, like, slowing down and not mattering,

they're, like, and, like, you don't need to get the new computer every year because it's not that much faster. They're now making consoles, like, flip it and try. try and convince you that you need to get the new one every year because they're so much better. But we know that's not true in the computer industry because like other than I guess maybe graphics cards, things aren't getting radically faster year over year. So why should I believe that's true about consoles? Yeah, except for you just said graphics cards. It's just graphics cards, right?

Which are like the... This sounds like it's just something that's really going to appeal. Okay, fine. Really the hardcore gamers, which by the way is great. Are graphics cards advancing that quickly? Are they like, are they like, oh my God, I cannot believe I ever live? this way? I would say the change in like the last three years for

like my PC graphics card is noticeable. I mean the most practical obvious changes that they now support VR and they didn't a year ago. Right. And like the changes when you see it with VR is going to be way more noticeable than it's going to be with the flat screen iterations. Also video RAM is increasingly important. I got to say like I bet the point where I'm like you know what I want to do I just want to play a fun game and I don't care about these specs.

I'm going to buy the new Nintendo that's coming out with the weird detachable thing. I don't know why. I don't know why I'm doing it. Oh yeah, I do. It's Zelda. Tell me about No Man Sky, because since I don't know a PlayStation and I'm not a PC gamer, this is like the thing that is like blowing up our entire website and half the internet that I like don't have personal experience with.

I need to know. Should I go out buy a PS4 right now so I can play No Man Sky? Not just for that. No? Okay, good. Sweet. All right. There's other reasons I should go on by a PS4 or now.

That's fine. No, like, describe to me the experience of playing this game and if it's living up to the hype. Can you want to take that last? I guess I've been nominated. So, I don't know. And this isn't playing next talk, but like, No Man Sky is,

I'm going to say it's a game, but it's not really. There's not really an objective to it. I mean, there's a loose objective, like, you're a person. You've got a spaceship, and you're trying to, like, you're at the outskirts of a giant galaxy.

Like, literally 18 quintet. planets, and you're trying to reach the center. Now, you're not going to go to all 18 quintillion. That would take literally decades and centuries of your life. But you can hop around, and you get to see these things that no one else in the world will see because this has been a giant universe that's been created basically using a giant algorithm. There's a lot of beautiful stuff.

But what do you do? I mean, that's kind of it. You travel to the galaxies. You think they're really pretty. You look at them. You take pictures. you fix your spacecraft and refuel it, and then you just kind of keep going.

I have a follow-up question, Dieter. Do you either enjoy audiobooks or hallucinogenic drugs? Together. Only together. Separately, I'm not interested, but together. This is the perfect game for you. You should absolutely buy a PlayStation 4. But audio books have a story.

No, no, no, no. He's saying that you should be listening to an audiobook while you play this game. Like, it's a, it's a, It's that beautiful monotony. I think I love the exploration of it. But you're right, there's not, like, a strong objective. It's really meant to, like, explore and, like, this kind of vast space and appreciate the fact that there's just so much of it. But while you're doing that, you might want to kill time doing something else.

You know, like, in Cosmos, where they explain how big the universe is, right? Yeah. Like, you know what I'm talking about, right? Where they're like, the calendar and he's standing here and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, wow. that's really compelling and like perspective changing.

So like at its best, the game is like that. But like at its worst, imagine having to go from all of those planets to the next. Like imagine something like, wow, now that your eyes are opened, let's see what's on each one. And they're like, I really rather not. Like, it's so impressive on a technical level, but ultimately, because it isn't, it's created by an algorithm or algorithms, and they pull from this pool of art assets, right? Uh-huh. So a human made, or humans, made kind of the assets that then get twisted and warped and smash back together by the algorithm. So they made like a bunch of different animal heads.

and a bunch of different animal bodies and a bunch of different kinds of limbs, tentacles. It's a little more complicated, but that's, yeah, I mean,

that's the general idea. But the basic idea. But the problem is like, at the end of the day, that's still that pool of assets, and the laws of these planets are still based off of whatever limited rules they've set for them

and colors and so on. So what happens is all the planets are in theory, unique, but there is this kind of like pervasive sense of sameness. Oh, so it's like aliens in Star Trek. Like, oh, yeah, this alien is totally different. It has its ridge on this side of its forehead instead of that side of its forehead. Did you just sneak a Star Trek burn into this discussion? I mean, how do you not bring a Star Trek burn in this discussion?

Did you ever play, this is like, I don't even know what I'm asking this. Did you ever play a game called Citizens? who's like Citizens Cabuto on PC. No. No. So I'll just like that. There was this like period where PC when it like had some like I guess high end graphics cards at the time had these 3D worlds that you could explore. But there was like nothing on them.

And they were all just like weird anglers like pseudo hills and valleys that didn't really go anywhere. And there's a lot of that. Like, this feels like somebody created a system that builds the world of video games from, like, 1999, infinitely. Right. So, like, there's two things that I like to take away from that. One, if you're a company that makes large games as kind of so-so narratives, like a Bethesda game, you should be doing this more often. Number two, like, I think the thing where this is going to live more than anything else is in the, when you find that moment, and you want to share it online and everyone else can appreciate it,

I think this is like, I think Chris, Chris is right. Most of the stuff you're going to see feels kind of samey. When that algorithm works and you find the combination that's just so weird or you find a way to tell a story about it and you can kind of like make it your own, then, you know, at least for now, like that's great on Twitter. It's great on Reddit. Like I enjoy other people's experiences of Roman Sky almost more than my own at this point. Yeah.

I mean, I also feel like that's a lot of video games. Yeah. I agree but like it that's weirdly I think kind of the appeal of streams and like gifts on Twitter and yada yada yada is it like

we're at a point now where like an army of teenagers can find dig through video games for their best bits and then deliver them to me in 15 minutes segments uh and I can get almost as much enjoyment out of them is that like I've always enjoyed video games on a theoretical

level as like somebody reports about them and just reads about them constantly. But that's especially the case as we get into this period of procedural creation where even the people who make the game don't know where the best bits are. I'm going to procedurally generate this ad right now. You ever heard of Casper? Of course you have. You listen to podcasts so you know what Casper is. it's not a ghost, it's an obsessively engineered mattress that is sold at a shockingly fair price. And it's these mattresses that come in a box and you take them into your apartment and then you open the box and the air hits them and they go from a tiny little roll to poof sitting around in your apartment. And it's made out of springy latex and supportive memory foams to different kinds of materials that creates an award-winning sleep surface with they will tell you if you listen. just the right sink and just the right bounce.

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There are terms and conditions that apply, just FYI. But don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. You should just go there. Casper.com slash verge. Offer code Verge. and go to sleep. You should just go to sleep.

You should play some No Man Sky and then go to sleep. That's what I recommend to you. I think we should make the term terms and conditions apply to everything. Yeah. Yeah, just be like, hey, I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you.

Terms and Conditions apply. Is that like retreats are not nourishments? My views do not reflect my employers. Yeah. Dan, what's your, you're here in Paulstead. And so before we get back to No Man's guy, I need to hear your weekly segment that has the same

consistent name every week that Paul usually does. Yes, so this is a weekly segment I do every week. It's called cool gadgets for rad dudes and also women. I think Paul already... And this week... Just roll with it. Just go. I do not know who this Paul is you're talking about.

Roll, Dan. But this week, I have a gadget just like I did last week in the week before that. And it is a new VR headset from a Chinese company and I'm going to pronounce this or try to pronounce this correctly Duoduo

and you spell the name DLO DLO DLO and apparently it's a phonetic Is that similar to yellow? Sure, except with a D

instead of an E. Lo, D. And I mean this is just ripe for a typo. It's ripe for a typo. It's ripe for a misread. And my number one suggestion to this company is maybe hire some English language consultants. But that said, they have this VR headset that looks like kind of like cop sunglasses.

So like if you're familiar with cop aviators, this is a VR headset that is almost the same size as those. And our wonderful reporter Addie, check them out this week. And they are very light as opposed to say like an oculator. or Gear VR or the other... Yeah, they're very light as opposed to giant, heavy-ass VR headsets that you put on your face. They're not very light to, compared to, say, I don't know, eye glasses. They're not light compared to eyeglasses,

but they are small enough and sunglasses-looking enough that you could walk down the street and not have too many people stare at you. Like, if you wore these on the subway, you wouldn't get, like, all over Twitter as like, oh my God, look at the person wearing VR on the subway. That happens every few weeks. But Adi tried them out, and because they have their lenses and stuff like that, in the front, they're still kind of like top heavy, or front heavy.

So if you move your head down, they kind of fall forward and stuff like that. And they didn't fit her head. It seemed like they were designed for a larger head, and they didn't fit hers very comfortably. And that's kind of like the whole problem with them is that to make VR headsets that are, work for everybody you've got to kind of make them work for every size and shape of heads that are out there and that's not an easy thing to do The other thing with what do they work with a PC or do they work with a phone or what? So yeah, so the other thing is So they have a device so they could plug into a PC, but they also have a device called a D1 which is kind of like the size of a phone Similar to an iPod touch that will serve it content and we didn't get to demo that device unfortunately when Eddie saw it they were plugged into a PC

but like with any VR system that kind of the big struggle for this is how much content there is and there isn't very much at this point. But in terms of hardware differentiation in the VR world, they don't look like your average VR gogg so I thought that was kind of cool.

Okay, I don't know. I think you want to do stuff in VR. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you want to do stuff, but like, you know, how much content is there in other VR? I mean, there's more. Is No Man's Sky going to be? available in VR?

That seems like that would be cooler. I like the idea of it being tethered to like an iPod touch-like thing rather than some of the other solutions. Like A, having a phone stuck on your face. B, having to be tethered via like a one terabyte connection to a massively powerful gaming computer. Or D. I skipped one on purpose.

What's the other one? Oh yeah, we've seen like people putting stuffing computers in backpacks and wearing them. The most similar thing to this that I've seen before is LG's VR friend. I forget what it was called. It was for the G5. And those were kind of, those plugged into the phone like this does. But they didn't do a great job of blocking out lights. It was kind of like you're just looking at screens in front of your face

instead of like an immersive VR experience. And according to Eddie's report, the Duo Duo, I did it. does a good job at blocking outside light and making it a more immersive experience. They're about $550.50. Okay. All right. $5.60. I'm sorry.

I'm not going to buy them. Well, we're almost that's time we have to do a super fast lightning round. I would buy a new PlayStation 4 before I bought those. When is it coming out the PlayStation, the Neo? Tell me. We don't know. Are you listening during the segment? You know.

You know. You know. No, no, it might be unveiled next month, but then we don't actually know when it's going to come out. When is it coming out? Wink. Right. Thinking through the podcast.

Here's what I'll say. Sometime after September 7th. Isn't Sony the company that, like, did a whole PlayStation announcement but never actually showed the hardware? Or was that Microsoft that did it? Well, I just remember the PlayStation 4 event was about 17 days long. Yeah, they didn't actually show the hardware. I think it might have been.

I don't know which one it was. It wasn't that the PlayStation 4 event where they didn't show the hardware. And it was like, they didn't show the hardware. It was 17 days long. Every tech journalist died. Yeah. And they never showed. Yeah.

I remember this. They stood on stage and they talked about its capabilities and then they literally didn't show the box. They're going to do it. They're going to do it again. I mean, they might. They might. They were mad. They were mad because I went around the auditorium afterwards, snapping photo.

It wasn't even snapping at the time. It was tweeting photos of like, well, that's not the box. and that's not the box and like where's the PlayStation 4 box? And they just didn't show the console because they said, you know, arguably the people that care about PlayStation 4 care more about what it can do and what it looks like. It's a box that's going to go. 100% right.

I mean, look, it is. And that was also, I remember that. They're totally wrong because. French people were so wrong. If you look at the PlayStation 3 and, you know, what that looked like and then what the PlayStation 4 ended up looking like, it was very obvious that people care what their game console look like if you just, you know, look at the changes they made. Imagine if they hadn't shown the box and then the box turned out to be as hideous as the

Xbox 1. Or the PlayStation 3. Whatever. Like, it, that's, we're revising it. They're not going to show the box. I will bet you a dollar. They will not show a box of any sort. Can we do it over under on how long the event's going to be?

If it's like, if it's going to be four hours. If they're not something that's like a year away, they have not designed the box. They need time to make that right. Let's give them some time to figure that out. You know, CAD just takes a while to load. It takes a while of load on a PlayStation 4. Guys, we did a parallelogram last time. What are we thinking this time?

Pyramid, pyramid? All right, let's do a pyramid. They should just totally straight up make it a pyramid. Not like evokes a pyramid. They should make it a literal pyramid. What was that box? Was it the boxy box that was kind of like a cube? A cube that melted into your table.

And turned on its side. And of course, didn't fit in your console center. We got to wrap up, so I only have time for a couple lightning around questions. But I'm going to ask my favorites. My favorites, Ross Miller, Jason Mamoa is in talks to star in a crow reboot. I think it's a damn shame. If Jason Momoa's going to remake anything, it should be Big Mama's house. And he can call it Big Momoa's house.

Dan, modest mouse singer, causes multi-suburu car wreck in Portland. This is the most Portland story ever. I mean, there's so many jokes to make here. And I feel like the internet has really done a good service in making all of them by now. But yeah, it's pretty historical story. The modest mouse singer fell asleep, hit into a Subaru, hit into another Subaru. It's pretty hilarious. A man fell asleep at the wheel and cost his multi-car pile up.

Nobody was hurt. He wasn't charged with anything. So sometimes life turns out okay. Remember, this is the asshole that backed his car into a cop car the other day. Yep. But sometimes it turns out okay. I was waiting for it. I'm sorry.

Everyone has made that joke. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Lauren, HP is trying yet again to sell laptops that basically have nothing in them because they work with the cloud. Great. Cool story. Well, good for them. Are they also throwing in a free printer with that?

Oh, God. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess a certain consumer doesn't care about RAM or processing power, but we don't know how that works out. I think they're selling these schools who really don't care about RAM or processing power, right? Let's see. They look cute. about it now. They look cute, right? How much are they going to charge with it? Oh, they're going to start at 219.

Yeah. So you're talking about Chromebook pricing. Oh, yeah. Most of their comparable Chromebooks with similar specs. Or you're talking about like the Surface 3. I feel like these aren't as fancy as the surface 3. These are like not surface 3 level. The processor until Cilloron.

I mean, I really don't have much of an opinion on this. I just don't know what to say. I'm like reading through the specs now and I'm sure that's exactly what is most exciting to our Vergecast audience is me reading through the specs of a low-end HP notebook that's going to sell the schools. You got to end strong. You got to, like, I have not, I've not shepherded this flagship well. I've not steered it well.

It's been a disaster for a show. You have to save it right now by saying something hilarious. Anything at all about the Olympics. I can't do that. Why have you not been watching the Olympics? Oh, my God. I love the Olympics. Mike, Mike.

I will say something about the Olympics. There's a green water. There's the fact that. U.S. gymnasts, Simone Biles just won. Yeah. The gold. It was just announced in New York Times.

Yeah. She wins at life. U.S. gymnast, uh, Ali Raysman, just won. Silver and a Russian woman, whose name I apologize. I don't remember off the top of my head, won bronze,

but U.S. took the gold. So I'm very excited about that. Why? In my next life, I want to come back as an Olympic Beach Volleyball player. I mean, who doesn't? Because they're awesome. I want to know why.

NBC can't seem to get decent clips onto YouTube. They're spamming YouTube nonstop with clips and they're all like just enough to make you mad that you're not seeing what you want, but not enough to like make you mad enough that you want to like go figure out how to actually watch the Olympics, especially on the West Coast where theoretically I'm supposed to be able to not see them time delayed, but in practice it's just impossible. I'm very mad about the Olympics. Chris, tell us about the GIF band. I mean, the Olympics, they are protective of everything. And they want to make as much money as possible off of the Olympics, even though they have almost no skin in the game,

because they get cities to be idiots and spend all of their money on buildings that will fall apart. And they feel like by banning gifts from the press, they can make money off that too. I mean, honestly, I'm very happy. What? How do you monetize a gift? You monetize a gift by not letting anybody else use and forcing people to watch your crummy video service. So you monetize the GIF by killing the GIF. Yeah.

I mean, that is everything about... The Olympics themselves are great. And I have never thought that there has been like a time where especially America needed them more. Like a bit of like happiness and joyful like communal patriotism. A plus. All about it. The idea that like I have to deal with the IOC and NBC who are both like disasters when it comes to both of this. NBC's parent company is invested in our parent.

Damn, I was about to do that. Hey, no problem. And you want to know what my opinion in their job is? Terrible. The Olympics are, I would say they're like painful to watch, but I don't get to watch any sports because I'm always having to watch some stupid story about like, did you know this person once swallowed a quarter and he had to pass it? But now he's back and he's better than ever.

That's okay. It's like you don't know who this person is anyway. You need something to humanize these people. Yeah, but then I don't even watch. them do the sport. Also, here's, here's, here's, here's like my big, my big gripe, right? Like, this is our chance to, like, learn about all of these other amazing people from all across the world. And because all we're doing is learning, like, yet again about what Phelps or Lachti, I actually don't get to learn anything about all of these cultures. And that's where I loved as a kid. Like, I remember

watching the Olympics as a kid and I, like, found out what Denmark is. It's a great place. But now you watch the Olympics and you'd be hard pressed to know that any other countries were competing. Well, I will say the United States has 10 more medals than anybody else so far. Oh boy. So are they competing? Wow.

Wow. Wow. Listen, I have to, I have to go do like work. Go Katie LeDecki. Go, um, go USA. That's all I do. I know. Some of the, so some of the, you know,

media that are covering the Olympics have been making some really boneheaded comments that some people are perceiving to be sexist. And I do not disagree with that. I think some of them are pretty boneheaded. But, you know. If you'd like to see things that aren't boneheaded, you can follow us at Verge on Twitter. We're at Verge on Snapchat. We're at Virginge on Instagram.

You can follow Instagram stories from us. I am. I'm wrapping. Just read Sam Bifert's story about how it's better to watch the Olympics without the announcers. There it is. Chris, what's going on? What's Tech this week? to the other podcast from Theverge.com.

On What's Tech, you can learn about the Xbox 1S if you listen to this week's episode. I spoke with Megan from Polygon. And next week, you have to wait and see. We might have a bonus No Man's Sky episode, but we'll see what we end up putting out. Lauren, what's going on too embarrassed to ask from Recode two R's, two S's? Too embarrassed to ask this week. We spoke to an Australian entrepreneur because my co-host, Keroswisher, is in the land down under. We spoke to the CEO and founder of Kenva about Photoshop alternatives.

If Photoshop is just too complicated to use. And then next week, I'm really excited about next week. We haven't actually announced this yet. So you, Virchcast audience, are the first people to hear about it. We are going to be speaking to the creator of the juicero. $700 Wi-Fi-connected juicing machine. And we're going to talk all about the Internet of Things and food tech and why you should spend $700 on a juicer.

There is also Verge ESP with Emily Oshita and Liz Zapato. I think their most recent episode had Ghostbusters in it and flossing to two things that go great together. And if you haven't heard, there's a random podcast feed from the Verge called Verge Extras where our very own Paul Miller and Demi Lee have decided it would be fun to describe photos. And so they're just doing, just talking about pictures. So you should go subscribe to that and see. what that's about. You can find all of it at iTunes.com slash The Verge,

which is a really great place to visit and click some stars. I think you could click five of them. We'd appreciate that. That'd be super helpful. You can follow all of us, the people on the show on Twitter. I'm at Backlon.

Lauren is at Lauren Good with an E at the end of it. Dan is D.C. C.ford spelled E.I. Ross is Otto. Roscoe with no E there's not an E anywhere No, Lauren took it. Lauren took it. And Chris Plant is at plant? At plant? At plant? At plant with an E.

There you go. And Eli Patel will be back next week. He's at Reckless. Please, you know, I was going to ask you to make a rock scotch joke, but just let it go. But if you feel the need to troll them on Twitter, that's the hashtag I'd recommend.

Rockscotch, just let it go.