Triple Click - The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X Are Almost Here

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

One More Thing:Jason: Ghost of TsushimaKirk: CarrionMaddy: The Nintendo GigaleakSupport Triple Click: https://maximumfun.org/joinMaxFun Drive Info: https://maximumfun.org/news/maxfundrive-2020-has-begun-and-its-full-of-great-gifts/The Console War Is Over [Christopher Dring, GamesIndustry.biz] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-23-the-console-war-is-over-opinionHow Xbox Game Pass works for developers [Matthew Handrahan, GamesIndustry.biz] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-07-08-xbox-game-pass-is-the-first-time-subscription-is-fair-for-developersThe big Nintendo leak [Patrick Klepek, Vice]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kp7bx/a-massive-leak-of-nintendo-source-code-is-causing-chaos-in-video-games  Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

War. War never changes. Except the console war. That one's actually changed quite a bit. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about the next generation of consoles, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X, which of these is the best choice? The answer depends on you. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Jason Shire, and we are here once again for another episode of Triple Clare. We sure are. Here we are. It's nice to see both of you. It is nice to see you both, too. And did you know that it is Max Fun Drive? I did know. I didn't know that, Jason. What? I had no idea. What? No, no one told me. I need to know more about this. What is this Max Fun Drive that you're talking about, Jason Schreier? Please tell me. I'm going to blow your mind right now. It's already blown. You're just going to blow it further.

It is Max Fun Drive, which means that this lovely network that Triple Click is hosted on the that we are a part of is doing a fundraising drive. And it's really cool because that's how we make money. And that is how Kirk gets fed. And that's how we're able to keep doing this show. So we're stoked about it. And yeah, we're very thankful to everybody out there who's been supporting the show and signing up to be MaxFund members so far.

So let me go over a couple of quick things that you get if you become a member. First of all, you get our bonus content. which has meant monthly beans casts, aka spoiler cast, a variety of things that we like, including Julys, which just went up, which is a beans cast about The Last of Us Part 2, where we talked about it. Which actually was a game that we were kind of more critical of,

so they're not all of things that we like necessarily. We had some criticisms of that game, but in general, yeah. Worthy games, to use Kirk's term, worthy games. Worthy games. Yeah, can we announce our August one? Yeah, let's announce it next time. Announce. Okay, we're going to announce our August one next. We're figuring out really what it's going to be, but it's going to be cool. It's going to be cool. It'll be a little different. It's going to be cool. And then if you subscribe, if you become a member at like $10 a month, you get some sweet pins so you can get some sweet triple click pins that are really cool. These like gold controllers are super cool. And yeah, you can get all sorts of bonus stuff. So go sign up. Please do. And then before we get started, I just want to give a quick shout out to our old friends because Dead Spin is. is back nearly a year after it imploded.

So just a little bit of history for all you out there who might not know in October of last year, the staff of Deadspin all quit in protests of Jim Spanfeller and Geomedia kind of interfering with their editorial independence in a way that was not cool. Should we say that's the place we used to work for the listener who hopped on board? We all three used to work at Katakou, which was also a part of Geo. Though I actually never worked for geomedia except as a freelancer, but I was never on staff. Kirk managed to get out before all of that happened. I feel good about that. Jason and I did not. We worked there when the Deadspin walkout unfolded.

Yes, but we are for reasons that may or may not be related. None of us are there anymore. And our old friends at Deadspin have just started, or our old former Deadspin friends have just started a brand new website called Defector. And what's cool about Defector is not just that it's a spirit of successor to Deadspin, but that they're launching it as like a worker co-op. So everybody who's a writer for the site, all 18 of them, each owns a part of the company. And they're doing reader subscriptions so you can sign up. I'm going to sign up as soon as I get a chance. Maddie already has signed up.

And it's all just super cool to see. And I'm very excited to have Despin blogs back because there's just been nothing like it. Like in the past year, there's really been nothing. I'm a big fan of the ringer for sports content and stuff, but like there's really been, there's nothing. And that's good in its own way, but like there's nothing like Deadspin used to be. Yeah, I'm just excited to see more worker-owned and just artist-owned co-ops out there in the world. So if that's something that you're about, and you're a max fun listener, so you're probably about it.

Yeah, sort of like us. Consider, consider supporting these things. Yes, yes. There's a cool New York Times article about this with more info. and one of the things that I liked is that they can vote out the editor-in-chief at any point, like the staff can, which is kind of changes the way that things might work at a media outlet, and I enjoy that. In a good way, I would say. Oh, yes.

Everyone should be able to vote out their boss. I like that. The future is now, and sometimes the future is not that bad. So, hey, let's get to it, Cheli. Today we are doing a hot topic. Hot topic. Hot topic. This is a hot topic that.

many of you have wanted us to talk about for a while because it's very newsy. This fall, Kirk Maddie, did you know that we're getting new consoles? Oh, my God. Wow. First you tell me about Max Fund Drive and now you're telling me there's new consoles. Oh, my crap, new consoles. Jeez, this is wild. For the first time since 2013, we are entering a new generation of police station and Xbox consoles,

which is very exciting. The excitement is diminished a little bit by this whole coronavirus pandemic that is ruining all of our Yeah, but what isn't that true of? And devastating everything. But still, it's something to be excited about. We've already seen a bunch of new games. Sony had a big thing that we talked about in June. Microsoft just had a big thing last week that we will talk about today.

And yeah, it's exciting times all around. I mean, first of all, before we even get into the question of the console wars, I'm curious to gauge the temperature from you guys. How excited are you? And Kirk, you can go first. How excited are you, too, about? this idea of a new console generation? Wow, I get to go first.

I am, you know, I'm plenty excited. I think that at this point, new game systems beget new games, and that's cool. I think, you know, a lot of people are not necessarily going to be ultra-syked about immediately jumping on board, and I'm sure we're going to talk about that, because I'm probably, like, one of the last people

to really need a new gaming console right now, just because I have so many video game systems and I have a really good gaming PC and I have so many things to play and I don't actually feel a burning need to buy a new one but I bet there are a lot of people who have kind of wanted a new console for a while but are waiting.

I think there's a lot of different types of people and I actually kind of want to talk about that today. The different kind of person who might want each of these consoles and I think it's really cool the variety that these consoles represent and how many different people will have something that they can get excited about.

But yeah, I'm always excited for new gaming shit. But you personally, you're kind of of like luquare. It's not it though. It's like I, if you're specifically talking about like, am I going to buy one of these consoles, I'm not really sure. I haven't seen a super compelling reason to yet, but there's so much information I don't have. But I'm very excited about the consoles, absolutely.

Like, I think they'll make a lot of things possible. And I mean, seven years of increased processing power, that's a long-ass time for things to be much more powerful and able to make much cooler games. So, yeah, no, I'm totally sad. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll get into the hardware, like, innovations and differences in a sec. But Maddie, I want to hear your thoughts too. Sure.

So I talked about this a little bit when we went over the PlayStation Reveal event where we were talking about all the games that were announced. But to me, it's just so comforting to have gaming news that feels regular because everything feels really bad at all times right now for a whole lot of reasons. That does impact the new console release cycle in some pretty obvious ways. The supply chain is going to be weird and different. And as a person who works in media, I care about covering all that stuff, and that's fascinating to me.

But it's also exciting to me to just get to cover and get to see what's happening with the new consoles anyway. It's like exciting and a comforting way because I'm just like, it's cool. It's cool to see new shit coming out, and it's cool to see game trailers. I love trailers. I'm a gamer. I love watching video game trailers more than anything else in the world. A gamer chair. I love it. I love trailers, so I'm pumped about it, honestly.

Yeah, Maddie, this is your first time working for a, game site for a console release, right? That is true. I think I was still at the Boston. No, the Phoenix had just gone out of business right before the console launch, which was a strange time in my life. I think I was freelancing in a bunch of different places. I definitely wasn't senior games editor at a major publication.

You were not. I wasn't planning all of our coverage for said new consoles, which is what I'm doing right now. Yeah. No, it's cool. It's exciting. It's exciting times. and it's always fun to get your hands on the thing and be like, look at all these crazy features.

I remember when we were covering it for Kataku back in the day, we kind of like our standards for what news were were lowered a little bit when it came to consoles because they were just so exciting. So it would be like, look, this is the power button. Look at like, this is the way that the operating system works because it was like you hadn't seen it before and we were going to be stuck with this stuff

for the next seven years. I mean, I think that's valid. Like, people genuinely didn't know where the power button was on the PS4 because it's like... Well, that's, yeah, that's a whole other thing. Completely invisible. Like, that was a news item that needed to be covered, okay? I'm not going to mock old school game publications for covering the power button. Can I tell you both that I very rarely need to use the optical drive on my PS4,

and I need to get a flashlight to look for the eject button still, like, on the PS4 Pro? How often do you even need to use that? Exactly. The power one, I think the power one is the bottom one, right? I don't know. I'd have to go in the other room and look. I guess. I always just guess.

I'm like, I'm going to hold this down and see what happens. So anyways, it's still a relevant question to answer for a year. This is the point. It is. I bet the one on the PS5 is more visible because I'm sure they've gotten that feedback a lot. It should all be like the Xbox 360 power button, just a huge button. You know what? That was a satisfying button.

I actually dug that button. It was. I like that button. I know. That's why I'm serious. But it was also the button where the red ring would appear. year. It sure was. That was my second thought was. It was a cursed button. Yeah, it was a little cursed, but a good button fundamentally. A good cursed button. Yes, yes. It was then cursed. So yeah, I'm of two minds. I'm kind of where you are, Kirk, and that it's always very exciting to have a new generation of consoles, but having a high-powered gaming PC just makes the whole idea of a new console just kind of worthless for me. But I am excited for the- Or different at least. Yeah, different, right. Sure, different. But I don't. I don't. see a reason to buy one at launch, that's for sure. So the, the PS5, I imagine that a lot of

those games will be able to play on my PS4, we'll get to that in a sec, and the Xbox Series X, we already know that all those games are going to come to PC, so I'll just be able to play those on my PC. But still, this idea is very exciting. So yeah, let's zoom out and talk about what all these guys are doing and then kind of compare them. First of all, Nintendo. So Nintendo has just become one big question mark for the rest of this year, at least officially. Un Officially, we know that they've got a Super Mario game collection up their sleeves and probably some other stuff for this fall, but officially they have not said anything about what they're doing this fall. But one thing we know for sure, they have confirmed

100% certainty that they are not launching a console. So we will take them out of this equation for now. Let's start with Xbox, because Xbox just had their big launch event. and they have a pretty interesting strategy that kind of runs in, it's very, very different from Sony's strategy of this console generation. So Xbox had their big event. They announced a new fable,

I guess that was the highlight. They showed some gameplay of Halo Infinite that has become the subjective memes all across the internet. They announced a vowed, a new obsidian game that looks pretty cool. They announced a new Forsa, a bunch of other random stuff.

Yeah, State of DK three. Some other indie games. A bunch of other random stuff. But one of the big catches, as I touched upon earlier, is that none of these games are actually exclusive. Microsoft doesn't seem to really care whether or not you will buy an Xbox Series X this fall. That is right. And they have said, Phil Spencer has come out and said,

all of our games for the first couple of years will be on Xbox 1 in addition to Series X, and they've also said that all their games will be on PC. Now, Maddie, it seems like you are skeptical that their games will actually be on Xbox 1, despite them saying this. Because Xbox has said, what they've said, what Phil Spencer has said is that all the games they are publishing and releasing are going to be Xbox one. So any game, Xbox, Game Studios game, you mean, is going to be on the Xbox one. That's right. For the next couple of years.

But anybody else who's publishing on the Xbox Series X doesn't have to do that. Correct. And there's also still some points of contention about games that you'd think would be on the Xbox one. So like avowed and as Dusk Falls, I believe were a couple of games that originally were listed as being on the Xbox one as well. And then those listings mysteriously disappeared. I believe Kataku covered those. Yeah, that's because they're more than two years out. Those games are forever forever.

I mean, who knows? And so it's just become something that fans have been arguing on the internet about all week long. Got it. But whether or not Phil Spencer is going to keep his promise of not forcing gamers to upgrade to the series. right away or whether you could just kind of hold on to the Xbox one for a while and be just fine. Well, that's an interesting question. It'll be interesting to see there. But I think that the idea of them having exclusive games is regardless is just nil because of the PC component. Because they're putting everything on PC, no matter what. And so that itself just like creates an option for you.

It's much better for the average gamer than the PlayStation approach of like every, you have to buy our console to play our games, because now you have this flexibility. If you want to go and spend 500 bucks on an Xbox Series X, you can do that and get a sweet console, or you can spend that money on a PC and get a whole bunch of games that you wouldn't be able to get on Xbox, because PC has such a humongous library and such a backout. So it gives you a few different options there, but it doesn't really make a compelling case to actually go and buy a Series X this fall if you want to have, if you already have a PC or if you want to explore other options. Well, those are pretty big if you already have a PC, it doesn't make a compelling

case, but a lot of people don't have PCs. So the idea, it seems to me, is it's a great console for people in this certain world that want that kind of console. And the thing that you haven't mentioned yet that I know I'm guessing you're getting to is the Xbox Game Pass, which seems to be the centerpiece of Microsoft's whole strategy here. Now, I'm not the first person to make this observation. Chris Plant at Polygon wrote a great piece about this. There's also this great GI Biz, a games industry dot biz article by Christopher Dring. That's basically, his premise is just, what if the console wars weren't a war

because everybody is going to win? He's making the argument that Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are all kind of approaching the idea of a new console launch or of having a game console so differently that each one can declare victory on their own terms and they're not directly competing. And mainly he's making, he's making the point

that Xbox and Microsoft seem to be pushing the idea of, you know, game passes like this, thing that you can just sign up for. You can get a whole ton of games through it. It's an amazing service. I mean, like so many people that I know use it every time I tweet about a game, it seems that people are in the replies saying, oh yeah, that's on Game Pass right now. Just now, it was Carrion, the game that's going to be my one more thing. Spoilers. And it's great. And I was like, this game's really good. And a bunch of people are like, oh, yeah, that's on Game Pass. I'm just

going to download it and play it, which is really cool. So that seems to be central to Microsoft's approach. Can you explain what this is to people who don't know? Yeah, like how it works. Oh, it's like you pay. a monthly fee. How much is it, $10 a month? $15 a month? So it's $10 a month for Xbox, and then it's been discounted on PC, so it's actually $5 a month on PC recently. So the way this works is you get all of those big Xbox games that they announced at launch, in addition to a huge backlog of games, a bunch of indie games. And, you know, we were talking about Outer Wilds, that one was on there. There's been a lot of games on there. Yeah. That's a really

cool system, and it seems like Microsoft is all about promoting that across all of their different platforms. You can also stream those games onto phones. They're really kind of expanding outward from being in the business of selling Xboxes to being in the business of selling subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass, which is really cool. And it always feels to me as though we're criticizing Microsoft for not locking down exclusives behind their console, almost in a way, I see this tone of voice on the internet, as though people are saying, ah, Microsoft, I wish you would compete directly with Sony so that there could be a fight because I'd want this to be a fight. And instead, Microsoft really clearly seems to be saying, we're just

not interested. If you have a gaming PC, fine, don't get an Xbox. We just don't care. And so people like all three of us, all right, fine. There's no reason for us to get an Xbox. But there may be a reason for us to get Xbox Game Pass. There certainly will be a reason to play Microsoft published games because they're publishing all these good games. So it just seems really great to me. Their approach makes me like what they're doing. Well, let's get into that, actually. let's get into that question. And by the way, with the GamePass thing, I tweeted the other day. I was like, holy shit, like, all these games are announcing are going to be, like,

you get them at launch on Xbox GamePast. That's, like, $60 each one for, like, $10 a month. That's ridiculous. And I tweeted, I think that, like, I can't think of a better deal in gaming. And then I noticed, like, a bunch of Microsoft marketing people retweeting it. And I was like, ooh, uh-oh, I feel like I'm advertising here. And so I deleted the tweet. That is a kind of an influencery tweet.

I can't imagine a better deal. Hashtag ad. Yeah, I was like, man. I wanted to pay a compliment. I wanted to be nice. Also, like, how does that help the developers? Like, I genuinely don't know the answer to this question. Like, what kind of a cut do they get as being part of GamePass compared to the other income streams that they have?

So I was reading about this, and this is something from a paradox developer, and I don't think it's, like, super established. But there is this article that we can link in show notes where a paradox developer was explaining that it actually works differently than, say, Spotify or Netflix, and that it's much more developer for. friendly. Like there is some mixture of like an upfront payment and this is like it's a good way for developers to make money at least some types of developers and that we can link that and show notes. It's not like not something I have expertise in and not a ton of people talk about it. But it isn't like a buy play or buy hours the way that Spotify works because Spotify totally screws over musicians. No, it's my understanding is that it's actually an upfront fee that they get. It's an upfront fee that they get.

which I think can be kind of a double-edged sword because on one hand it's like, great, guaranteed money, this is awesome, I don't have to worry, it's stable. On the other hand, it's like, okay, so I'll never have a chance of winning the lottery and making the next Minecraft because I'm just getting that. Or you become the next Minecraft,

but you're not getting any residuals or any form of residual from it and you're seeing how popular your game is on GamePass but... Right, your game is downloaded hundreds of millions of times. No, I mean, a game like Carian, for example, I'm assuming got an upfront fee to be on Xbox Game past, but is also on Switch and is also on PC, and is being played, you know, and sold separately.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it can be, it's, nobody's really complaining about this. Like, it seems like it's helped a lot of developers in a lot of ways. Just similar to, like, being part of Xbox Live Gold or, like, any of those free promos, it always seems to help people more than it hurts. But let's talk about the games for a second, because I think it's worth diving into a little bit. We're not going to go game by game through the entire Xbox conference. But I actually came away from that, I don't know, underwhelmed by what Xbox had to show. I kind of expected them to go all out and be like, look at all these studio acquisitions we've been making. Look how they've panned out.

We have all this awesome stuff now. And I was just kind of disappointed. It was a lot of CGI, not a ton of gameplay from most of those games, a lot of games that seem many years distant from now, such as avowed and fable. Halo infinite. I'm not a Halo guy, but like Maddie, you're sure. We're not impressed. I'm not alone in thinking that either. Like, the memes are out there.

People are agreeing with me on this and that it doesn't quite look... No, yeah. It looks rough. It looks like the type of game that will get an investigative article a couple of months after it launches. Okay. Preview for Jason Trier's work in the future. So, no. So it's... It doesn't feel... And, like, I came away from the Sony event a lot more impressed than I came away from the

Microsoft event in terms of actual games. In terms of overall console strategy, I'm way more impressed by Microsoft and way happier. Like Microsoft's strategy is very much like customer-friendly, gamer-friendly, as opposed to Sony's, which is like locking things down behind exclusives, paying Bethesda to lock death loops behind PlayStation and not allow Xbox players to have it for a while. It's, yeah, just shitty business practices. But the software, like Microsoft has not, I don't think they've gotten there yet. What do you guys think of that?

of that lineup. Go ahead. Well, I guess I just wanted to say I feel like you answered your own question in a way because I think the reason why Microsoft showed such an underwhelming show is because it's not really about showing a big splashy show that's going to

sell a console for them. They could just be bullshitting all of us. But it was. I mean, that's what it was trying to do also. I don't know if it was. I think they genuinely care more about their subscriber base and the longevity of Microsoft as a brand across all the platforms we've listed

than they do about Xbox Series X. Yeah, if you look at like the tweets from the Microsoft executives and their messaging. Look at the tweets, Maddie. Look at the tweets. I'm not saying they don't care at all. I'm just saying it's not like Sony. Their whole thing is like play all these games.

All of Microsoft's amazing Xbox Game Studios on the most powerful console ever. They're very much all in on this thing. I mean, you're not wrong, but I also feel like Sony is in a much more precarious position here because they are banking everything on this old school classic exclusive console on strategy,

which is like they have to wow us with these flashy exclusives because that is what they're banking on. They don't have the equivalent of, you can also just play these on your high-powered PC and we also don't give a shit if you do that. We truly don't even care, which is the angle Microsoft is taking.

Are they lying and fronting and they really wish we'd buy the Series X? Perhaps. But as part of their marketing strategy, acting like it's super chill, whereas PlayStation has to be like, no, Miles Morales, get ready for that shit. It's only going to be on PlayStation.

Okay, but intentions aside, the Microsoft conference, I'm curious to hear if you guys came away from that being like, oh man, I'm excited about all the first party games Microsoft has in the works. Because like, regardless of what they want to sell. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't. I agree with you. Regardless of what, no matter what they want to sell, which consoles or services they want to sell,

they still have all these software companies that are working on games. So, Kirk, what was your take on the software lineup from Microsoft show? I think I got the sense that they were, you know, it was just too early for a lot of those games to show, but a lot of them will probably be good. Microsoft has made some great acquisitions. They own all of these studios that made very cool games, and we just didn't see, you know, the games that they're working on, but they're working on the games. Like Obsidian is making a new RPG. That game ever wild, I have no idea what it is, but it looked like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Yeah, it did look awesome.

Yeah, it was really cool. There's no question that Microsoft is going to be releasing a lot of really cool games onto their subscription service, and it communicated that to me. I wasn't expecting them to be like, yeah, and if you have a PC, like, fuck the console. Like, of course they're going to be like, and the console is exciting too, you should buy it. But I think that their strategy shows that they're taking a broader approach. And it's just a timing thing. I mean, they shifted, you know, they're a huge ocean liner, and they needed to really shift their direction.

So they bought all these studios. They made all these acquisitions over the last few years. It takes a while to make video games, and it would appear that those studios are just not quite ready to show those games. So it's still a little bit of a promise right now, but it's a very promising strategy. So if they're going to make promises based on it, I'm listening, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of awkward, though, because Halo Infinite is coming right on up as compared to some of the other games we saw, and it just didn't look as good to me as I wanted it to look. I agree with you on everything else, though.

Like, I think Ever Wild and Avowed are going to be really cool in a couple years. And I think Microsoft strategy is really good. I just, I feel like to me the linchpin was you need a really sick Halo Infinite trailer, and that is what I was expecting, and it's not what I got. I think, yeah, to move us along a little bit to Sony, I think that they were missing the Horizon Zero Dawn 2 trailer, like, or whatever that's called Horizon the Forbidden West. Like, I think that that kind of thing is usually what you expect at this kind of conference, because this kind of conference has traditionally been about showing you the amazing-looking exclusive game,

and Microsoft just isn't taking that approach anymore. kind of can't craft that kind of a conference anymore. Like they need to show you a game, a halo game that's going to run on Xbox One, you know? Like, so it's just not going to look the way that Horizon Forbidden West looked like just like a ridiculous looking thing. And, you know, like that's, that's just their strategy. It makes it impossible to make that kind of an event. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, well, so the Sony strategy, I think, I mean, I'm feeling pretty good about my, my prediction earlier this year that the PlayStation 5 will outsell the Xbox Series X this fall because I feel like Sony strategy seems a lot more designed to get you to buy a PS5 this fall.

And I think as of right now, we don't know 100% what the launch lineups are going to look like, but if you put a gun to my head and said, hey, if you had to pick one launch console to buy this fall, and in real life, I probably won't get either of them for a while unless like I have to review them or something, but I would go with the PS5 because I would have stuff to play on it, like Spider-Man, for example, Spider-Man Miles Morales. And it just seems like it would be a better option than the Xbox Series X for this fall, especially because I could combine that with my PC and then just play everything. So, yeah, I mean, I guess Sony strategy, as much as I'm, like, attacking it for being restrictive and anti-customer or whatever, it's, it works, I suppose.

Exclusives are with cell consoles. The trick works. I think it works on people like us. It works on people who play every single video game and have every game console. But I think there are a lot of people who Microsoft's strategy will be very appealing to. It's expensive as hell to buy a PS5. I'm not buying a PS5. And because you have to buy a PS5, you have to buy whatever games you're getting.

Each of those games is very expensive. You have to buy underbuttones for your controller. You do, that's true. You have to buy those extra. With the Xbox, you really can get just the console. You can just get a subscription service and play whatever games you want. And you, as Phil Spencer says, you already have the library. Like, that's the whole point of how it works.

I think that there's a type of gamer who absolutely will find that much more appealing, especially if you have like a family and a budget and, you know, you can't spend like literal thousands of dollars on video games every year the way that hardcore enthusiasts and professionals like us do. Yeah, it's not just that. I think Xbox also has like one of those plans, like a leasing plan or whatever, where you can get like a two-year, like $30 a month thing, one of those schemes. Like a car?

Yeah, exactly. And you'll get the console and then also Xbox Game Pass. So bearing in mind that we're on the midst of a historic economic meltdown in our country, there's insecurity for everybody. So many people are worried about money. Dropping that much money on a video game console seems crazy. Even if you have savings. Like it's a ton of money. I mean, that's part of why I feel like Microsoft is at such a huge advantage, intentionally or not. It's almost like they were preparing for this crisis without intending to for the past several years. They knew? Are you saying that they caused corona? Am I saying Phil Spencer released COVID-19? I'm not saying that. People can draw their own conclusion. But for real, though, I think they just so happen to be in a very competitive position. And this is something that they've been planning for many years. It's not like they had to pivot suddenly because they were like, oh, people aren't going to want to buy a physical console this year because no one has any money or jobs. It's just that they happen to be selling a really competitive subscription service right now. And if you've got a computer that can play a video game, great. You probably need something to do. But yeah, I can't, I

can't picture who buys a PS5. I'm not sure who that person is other than the hardcore enthusiast that Kirk described. Well, the hardcore Sony fan or the Spider-Man fan, even though I would bet you both my arms and my legs that Spider-Man Miles Morales comes to PS4 this fall also. Yeah. That was my feeling the minute I saw it. It was like, because surely this is going to be on PS4. Yeah, because there's no way that they're going to restrict it. But regardless, I think that, I mean, ultimately, I know a lot of people out there are probably wondering, like, which should I buy? Which should I invest in? If I'm just going to buy one console this fall. And I think the answer, as someone who vividly remembers the last

console launch, the answer is neither of them. Like, there's really, you got to wait. A, because things will be cheaper. Until basically a game comes out that you know is fabulous and requires that console. Which is the, actually always been the answer to this question for however, like, for so long, until there's a video game that you need that console to play that you really like, don't get it. And then the other part of this equation is that if you just take that money and go on New Egg and

do like a PC part picker thing, you could probably find a pretty good gaming PC for that same money. But then you can only play Xbox games on there. Well, and all the PC games. Yes, of course. Which now is about to include Horizon Zero Dodd. So soon enough I'm sure it'll be like all Sony games also

will be on PC. So ultimately I'm very much in favor of like open garden platforms. You get a PC, you can get anything, you can get emulators, you can hack it, whatever. You can do all sorts of shit on your, on your computer that you can't do on a console. So we're recommending being a PC gamer in terms of the console wars? That's the way to go. Cool, okay. I was going to say I think people should get a Nintendo Switch. It's a pretty great console. Yeah, the Switch is a good one. I actually, I just recommended Zelda, Breath of the Wild to like one of my friends who isn't a big gamer at all and has bounced off every game he's tried in the past

couple of years. And he's been texting me every day being like, I just hit 100 hours. Like, I've never played a game this good. Like, holy shit. Yeah, it's, the Breath of the Wild is just one of those games. Yeah, I mean, we didn't, we didn't talk about Nintendo much here just because they're not releasing a new console, but they have certainly carved out a very neat spot for themselves as the other console that you own in addition to like a PC or a gaming thing. Right, the supplement. Yeah, and they're like selling out switches everywhere as we speak. So like to say they're not competing in the console war, like they aren't technically, but they're also already winning in their own way. Right, because they don't need to, because it goes

back to this thesis that like everybody, they can each win the war on their own terms, especially Nintendo. Yeah, three different battles that each of the companies are fighting in. Yeah, I do think if I had to make another prediction, it would be that like the whole PlayStation exclusive thing kind of fizzles out over the next couple of years as Sony realizes that it would be smarter to just like become a more platform agnostic and just allow, like put more of your games on PC, put more of your games wherever. I mean, they can't hate the money they're making from Death Stranding and Horizon or that they'll probably make from Horizon.

Exactly. I'm sure Horizon is going to like make them buttloads on PC. Yeah, and it's a good test bed there. But yeah, I mean, we still don't know a lot about these things. Most pivotally, we still don't know the price. So like any of this conversation is always going to be premature when you don't know the price, but we don't know the launch lineups other than a couple. things and we don't know what the next year is going to look like. We don't even know what

this falls like big third party party games are. The new Call of Duty hasn't even been announced yet. We don't know anything. Anything could happen. And that's going to be a game changer. Yeah, for sure. There's going to be Black Ops and Cold Wars. Did you guys see that the game's name got announced or leaked via Doritos bag. Like a Doritos bag came out that said Call of Duty, Black Ops Cold War. Perfect. I love that actually. That almost maybe was on purpose. Yeah. to kind of put a pin on this conversation. It is we still don't know enough. We are interested by what we've seen so far,

but like we don't have all the info yet. And in general, buying a console on launch is probably a bad idea. All right, why don't we take a break? And then we will be back with one more thing. Hey, guys. So as you all have heard by now, it is Max Fun Tribe. What? I haven't heard that.

What? No one tells me anything. I didn't know. It was Max. What is this? What is what? We are fundraising. Thank you all of you out there who have put in your hard-earned cash and helped support the show because we would not be able to make this happen without you all.

That's true. And big thanks to everybody who supported our stream last week last Friday, May. Yes. It was a lot of fun. We were on them for three hours. We were answering people's questions. We were messing around in Destiny. We were having all sorts of fun trying to do Whisper of the Worm, which is a mess, which is what a disaster of a mission.

and I certainly want to do it again. Do you guys want to do it again sometime soon? Of course. Absolutely. So keep an eye out. Our stream channel is Twitch.com slash triple click pod. And yeah, big thanks to everybody out there who's just supporting the drive and helping us make this show awesome. And if you want to support us, you can go to Maximumfund.org slash join.

That is the URL to find out more about becoming a member. And if you can't become a member, that's cool too. We've seen a lot of people spreading the word, some people sharing around that Final Fantasy 7 music episode. Yeah. A wonderful one. And so tell people about the show, too. There are so many ways that you can help us that are non-financial, since, of course,

it is pretty uncertain times for a lot of people. But thank you so much to everybody who has signed up to become a member. That's really cool. And we are back. Kirk, Maddie, it is time once again for one more thing where we each pick one more thing to discuss. I am going to go first, because this is a game that a lot of people have been wondering whether or not we will talk about.

I have been playing Ghost of Tsushima, which I actually did not think I would get, but on a whim just bought it after, I think it was the weekend it came out, and I was just like, man, I'm reading all these reviews, seeing people talk about this collect-a-thon, and it looks fun, and I'm glad I did, because I'm actually really enjoying it.

Nice. So Ghost of Tushima, to people who aren't familiar, is a samurai game. I think it's best described as, like, an original style Assassin's Creed set in feudal Japan as a samurai because it's very, very much like those old Assassin's Creed games,

there's a lot of going around and taking outposts and assassinating dudes as you do and escorting people or like tailing people and getting booted if you escort, if you leave the mission perimeter for more than a few seconds and all that delicious stuff,

hiding in tall grass. Although there's no jumping off like eagle style into bushes, sadly. There's no barreness. barrels of hay to jump into. There are some beautiful views in that game. It does look like it's gorgeous. Incredible, incredible art direction.

And it's not even like the graphical fidelity. So it's interesting playing this game after playing The Last of Us 2 because Last of Us 2 is like the most highest production values, most beautiful vistas of Seattle and most polygons ever in a game. But Gosef Tsushima is very stylized. So like it might not hit those same like heights of production. values as lots of us too, but it's got so many pretty colors and animals and just like beautiful sunsets and Japanese villages and just a lot of cool stuff. And I'm really enjoying just like running

around and stabbing dudes and the combat is really fun. I keep having this weird thing that I hinted at a little bit last week where like I'm having all this fun like sneaking around and stabbing dudes and then thinking to myself, I'm just like killing people. too, it's ruined you for violence. It's a video game experience. It's just like getting such a kick out of like stabbing someone in the neck with your like little samurai sword. And then there's a lot of emphasis on the one-on-one combat, not just sneaking around because

you can't sneaking around. And actually the whole story, a large part of the story is about your main character, Chin, like trying to deal with the fact that he has to put aside his honor and sneak around in order to take out all these Mongols who are invading the island. And so, like, a lot of it is him reckoning or trying to reconcile the fact that he has to do these things, like throw smoke bombs and sneak up on dudes from behind with his honor and his training that he got, like, as a samurai of, like, always wanting to challenge people in front-to-front combat. Like, you never stab someone in the back. But anyway, that's a whole part of the story.

But, yeah, you're going around and you do a lot of actual fighting, one-on-one fighting or one-on-15 fighting. And the comet system is really fun. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do, a lot of parrying and special moves you can get over time. And you have these stances. Each stance that you can pick one of four different stances, and each one is most effective against a certain type of enemy, like dudes of spears or dudes with shields or whatever. And yeah, there's a lot to think about. It can be really hard. I'm playing it on hard, so it's nice and challenging. And it's really cool. And Kirk, one of my favorite things about this game that you would love is the UI, because there is no UI. It's like basically a UI-free game. And there's no many maps, no waypoints. The way that you get from location to location is by you go to your map and you select someplace you want to go to, whether it's like a quest icon or like you want to go find something or whatever. And the wind will take you there and you swipe up on your PS4 touchpad thing and a gust of wind will send you in the direction that you want to go.

That's really cool. And it works really well in practice. I was a little skeptical going into it, but it works really well. So yeah, I'm really enjoying this game It's a little janky, especially after The Last of Us, where it's like super high polished animations. And here it's kind of like nice-looking animations, but like compared to The Last of Us too,

it's not quite the same. But yeah, really enjoying it. Nice. I'm glad to hear that this UI pattern. This is a PS4 game, we should say. This is another PS4 exclusive. It is made by Suckerbunch who made the infamous games. And Sly Cooper.

Can't forget Sly Cooper. Yeah, I feel like The Last of Us, Horizon, and now this, all those Sony, PS4 third-person games don't have a minimap, and I'm on board, but they're not being mini-maps and games. Nice. Okay, cool. So, Maddie, what is your one more? Okay, so I wanted to talk a little bit about a news item that happened, which is, it's being nicknamed the Gig A leak, but that is a nonsense phrase that I will instead describe as a huge leak of a bunch of Nintendo source. code files, information about old Nintendo games. And there's not a lot that people know about how this happened.

Patrick Kleppick did a really good story advice where he talked to some folks about how it may have happened and the people who are suspected to have done the hack of Nintendo's files that led to this leak, although it's not confirmed. But basically it's resulted in a ton of memes online where people are sharing like Yoshi's original design, for example, like he used to be a really, long adorable Velociraptor as opposed to the short and squat, adorable Velociraptor. So the leaks are from like old Super Nintendo and N64 games. Oh, super, super, super old like Super Mario Kart, Legend of Zalda Link to the Past, like Yoshi's

Island. Like we're talking like OG Nintendo games. And like there's a canceled Zelda 2 remake in there and like Star Fox files. So it's all stuff that never actually made it like into games. It never saw, yeah, never was in the games. So it's like original ideas. like the Yoshi one, like Yoshi is not a long velociraptor in the games. He is the Yoshi that we know and love.

But like because of this leak, we're seeing things that were never supposed to see the light of day. But which brings me to my final point, which is I have mixed feelings. Everyone has mixed feelings about this leak because it is not something that the artists who worked on these things ever wanted to be made public. And I just, I don't know. I feel really weird about it. And there have been some interesting points made by preservation.

about what the leak will mean for them because obviously any video game preservationist would want a company that's even a secretive as Nintendo to release this type of information just because it's interesting and it's cool to know about but they would never do something like that and in theory the contents of this leak should be preserved forever and be a historical artifact that people can see but that isn't something that's happening because it was illegally obtained and it just introduces is these moral quandaries about leaks of video games. Interesting. I don't know.

What do you guys think about it? Have you seen some of these leaks? Yeah, I've seen some of them. I saw the one where like Mario slaps Yoshi to make him stick his tongue out. That was the gift that I saw. There's a good shit. I read Patricia's roundup of this on Polygon. Yeah, I had mixed feelings from the very beginning.

Only it's like anytime there's a major data breach and newsworthy stuff, like interesting stuff comes of it. That same question comes up of like, okay, but this was a, in an illegal way and the people who own it or control it don't want it to be out here so how do i don't know how i feel about seeing it and i am sympathetic to that i you know i also just there's something about unfinished art being out in the world that i just even notwithstanding the like pretty clear moral problem of like illegally obtained things i always think about jeff buckley's albums his posthumous albums that came out after he was dead sketches for my sweetheart the drunk and that album has always bummed me out because it's not this perfect album. Like, Grace is this really

shined, perfected album that he worked on so long and they released it and it was this whole thing. It's like a masterpiece. And now we're listening to stuff that he just, he died before he could finish it. And he's not around to say whether or not, you know, he wanted that to be in the world or wanted me to be hearing it. So I actually don't like listening to it. And it's different. You know, it's an artist who died. It's one person. But it's, there are some similar things there, I think. And it raises similar questions for me. Yeah, especially since some of the artists have expressed discomforted the idea of these things being leaked, which is like kind of discomfitting. I don't know.

I don't feel great about it, even though seeing some of these images is fun. It's also like, well, it would have been cool if they had actually been released the normal way, except that never would have happened. Yeah, it's tricky. Like, think about if every Kataku draft of an article that we wound up spiking was published. You know what I mean? But that would be a weird feeling. It'd be like, oh, but it was like 20 years ago, 30 years of. ago it's fine. Maybe in 20 years this happens.

But it's still like, yeah, I don't know, but I decided. That would be a real problem if every could talk a draft. I know. It's different in some ways. It would be. And it's a problem. Some of this is a problem as well. Like there's like personal stories in the source codes for some of these games that people are telling about their lives or like swears or jokes that people told, some of which are inappropriate. But it's like none of this was ever supposed to be seen by anyone.

Yeah, that's wild. Well, so it's interesting because I think that there's an argument that I sympathize with that companies and a, especially Nintendo, are so secretive about their development processes that it really benefits everybody to have, like, examples of their iteration and their failures and their unfinished work and all that stuff coming out. One of the most notable parts of this leak has been the confirmation of Luigi and Mario 64, which is one of those long-time rumors and legends that has just been wild for all sorts of reasons. And a lot of this is, like, video game history that has just been buried. And the preservationists are, like, part of the stuff in there, it's so big that it's

impossible to really group it into, like, one conversation, because so much of it is what you were talking about, very personal stuff, source code, that people did not want to be seen tools, that people did not want to be seen, yada, yada, yada. But then there's parts of it that are, like, there are key parts of video game history that we don't actually know because the companies behind games are so secretive and opaque. And, like, Nintendo just keeps so many things to itself. hidden away in its vaults, that there is a fair argument to be made that, like, this is beneficial to history and to video game history. But, like, who gets to make that decision?

I think that the information being out there? Nobody gets to make that decision. A hacker made it for us. Yeah, hacker made the decision. That's what I'm saying. Well, the question, I mean, the interesting moral question is, like, if you were in possession of this, what would you do? And I think that that's not, that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about here.

But I think that there is an argument to be made, and I've seen some preservationists to make this argument that, like, this stuff being in the public is, does a good, does a public service, even if it also feels shitty. Hence the whole mixed feelings part of this. But there is a public good here. Yeah, the question is, is there a way to do this that doesn't require, you know, violating Nintendo in order to take things that they didn't want to have released? like is there a more legitimate way of doing this or could this in fact be an opportunity to explore that like to talk to these companies more about preservation no it'll make them clam up even more i mean i think unfortunately it'll have yeah it'll have the opposite effect unfortunately like even if the hacker behind this wanted to shed more light on these projects like out of the goodness of enjoying it which i have no idea what their motivations were that may have been it it's going to have the opposite effect like i think it will will make companies even more reluctant. So then isn't that an argument that this does more harm than good? I would say so. As fun as it is to see some of these files,

I think ultimately it does harm, which is sad. So just overall, an interesting piece of news, but one that... I mean, the harm that it does, I don't care about the harm of making companies more opaque than they were already, because they're already super opaque. The harm that I care about is the developers who are suddenly 30 years later seeing their unfinished stuff

that they may not feel super comfortable with going out to the world, and it's not their choice. Like, it was a choice that was taken from them. That, to me, feels pretty unfair. And I say this to someone who has posted some leaks of stuff that in ways that I've regretted in the past for that very reason. But I do think there's an important argument that, like, like the fact that it took us 25 years to know that,

hey, there was supposed to be Luigi and Martin 64, and the fact that, like, Nintendo has been so opaque about that history, I think does a disservice to, video game history and development as a whole. And so that's the public good. So, like, I think there is a public good here, even if the way that it all came out into the open is totally horrible and invasive and, like,

should not have happened. The net effect does have some positive results. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, it's out there now, so I guess we'll just see what happens. Yeah, it's wild, man. It's quite a story. Kirk.

My One More Thing is a game called Carian. It's good. It's a really good video game. It's pretty straightforward. Maddie, you're also playing this, I gather, from your tweets. I haven't beaten it. Have you beaten it? I have. I know it's not very long. No, it's not super long. It's a great length, and that's one thing I love about it. It is a fabulous game. So, Karan is made by a Polish game studio called Phobia Game Studio, which is an appropriate name. It's a side-scrolling, retro-looking thing that you can play on PC. You can play it on Switch. I believe the Switch port is really great, though I played it on PC.

I got it on Switch. It rules. Okay, so Maddie can attest that it's good. It's also on, I believe it's on Xbox GamePass from people on Twitter telling me that they've just been playing it, which is cool. So there's a lot of ways to play this game, and it's really good, and you should. It's basically like a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing. You play as the monster in a classic horror movie setup where you're some sort of, you know, like experiment gone wrong. You're this mass of... You're a flesh mass.

Yeah, like a flesh and teeth and tentacles that just breaks... So it's a sequel to Inside. Well, so it's very similar to Inside. I was going to draw that comparison. So you break out of a test tube at the beginning of the game and then start eating people immediately and you're in this kind of weird government research facility that's full of scientists and guards and people in hazmat suits and then you just gradually climb and crawl and slither your way through ducts grabbing people and chomping them and eating them and getting bigger and bigger and

getting more and more powers it's so good it's so good um talk about the music yes the music is so good it's by chris velasco who actually did some music for bloodborne and he did the music for prototype that video game from a while back which this game has some in common with it. It's a side-scrolling game that looks completely different, but it does have this sort of red amorphous, like, bio-monster thing going on, where you're like just blasting blood everywhere and, like, eating people just sort of indiscriminately. It's funny. That's all I remember about prototype is how red it was. Yeah, it was, like, not a great game. I didn't play very much of it. But the same composer,

too, though. The music is great and it really calls back to those, like, classic horror movies. The movement in this game is unbelievable. You move around, you just these tentacles shoot out of you, in whatever direction you're going, and you're so fast and so deadly. You just go crashing around, but you can also actually move very slowly and carefully if you want to. And just the feeling of crawling into a little duct underneath a room full of guys, you're this huge, like, horrible, like, just collection of globules with, like, teeth going in and out of it that's constantly shifting. It looks kind of like World of Goo. It really reminds me of the physics of World of Goo.

And then so much of the tone of this game and the flow of this game remind me of Inside, of played Ed's Inside, where it kind of just, it builds and builds as you move through this mysterious, like, building. You learn more kind of about the story, the backstory, but it's all pretty opaque. There's no dialogue. The only words in the whole game are these occasional like hazard screens that'll come up on little LCD screens, but that's it. No one talks. People just are like, ah, when you're eating them, and that's basically it. There's so many, like, scream sound effects. I mean, part of what I like about the game is the sound design. Like, the music is really moody and there's orchestral parts to it as well that make it feel super epic when you're

doing like wild shit but then there's also like these low moody parts and then like when you run into chains the chain sounds are really satisfying and also people's screams are satisfying which is a sentence that I'm saying I don't know it just all fits together to be it just it's a power fantasy game and I it is that's part of why it's hitting the spot for me so much Maddie it's fun neckstabbing and satisfying screen. That's the thing is this game, I think, does something really cool, which is that it lives in this abstract horror movie space where it doesn't feel weird that you're just devouring people and ripping them apart as they scream.

Because you're the monster. Yeah, you're the monster. The whole thing makes sense. None of them are, no one has a personality. They're not shouting out names to one another when you're killing them. This is like not that at all. You don't have to press the square button to torture. No.

And you don't, you don't know anything about these people and you never have to. because they are otherworldly to you. Like, you are a being that is in and of itself. And they created you, presumably? Or they trapped you? Well, you kind of find out the story as you play. Oh, you do? Yeah.

So the carrion monster, I mean, maybe it's an experiment gone wrong, but maybe it's also, like, some type of worm. Like, there's some points where the scientists are collecting clues, and it suggests that it's some type of worm. So it might be, like, some natural being that just evolved in some way. I mean, the fact that they don't tell you, I think, is fine. Like, it's all up to your imagination, really. It doesn't matter, right.

It's the inside thing where, like, it just doesn't matter. You can come up with explanations, but that's just not the point of the game. And, yeah, the sound design, I like the sound of the tentacles. They're like, as you, like, move around. It's this horrible little rope noise. And just, man, it's so good. I love it to death. I think everyone should play it.

And, yeah, it's about six hours long. And the ending is great. Like, it's just good all the way to the end, just like inside. And then it ends. And you're like, boom. I'm done. I loved that. Oh, that's, oh man, six hours long is like the perfect falling point. It's perfect. It's very, very good game. So that's Carian and that's on every console and on PC as well. And I loved it. I guess I will say, like, if you don't like gross games or gory games, like it's not child friendly at all. If you don't have a strong stomach, you shouldn't play it.

If you watch the thing and you thought to yourself, boy, I'd like to be the thing in a video game, then here you go. this is for you. The Gore is pixelated, but there is quite a bit of it. There is, yeah. Before we say goodbye, just quick shout out to Crosscode, the game I've been raving about, because they actually just released their Switch patch, which fixes a lot of the issues I talked about a couple of weeks ago. So if you've been waiting on the Switch version of that game, you can get a patch now.

Also, before we go, one more shout out to the Max Fun Drive, which is still happening. It's been happening for the past hour. I don't know. It just doesn't end. And yeah, I mean, there isn't a ton more to say other than just a big thank you to people who have signed up boosted or like up their subscription and are supporting us. Really, even if you don't have a single dollar to give us, that's totally fine. As long as you're listening to the show, go tell all your friends about it. We appreciate every single listener out there.

So thank you all. If you do want to subscribe, thank you so much. You can go to maximum fun.org slash join to sign up and become a member, get some. bonus episodes of the show, get some pins, get whatever you want. And on that note, it is time for us to say goodbye. So, Kirk, Madio, Maddie.

I almost just, I was going to say Adios, and then I said Madios. Madios. So, Kirk, Madios. It's a me, Madio. It's a me, Madio. I say that every day when I wake up. Anyway.

Episode's over, I guess. Goodbye. Goodbye, Maddie. I'll see you both next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to Maximumfund.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so help support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com, on Twitter at Triple ClickPod, and send email to Triple Click at Maximum. Fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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