Triple Click - What's Going On With Xbox?

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Xbox recently announced plans to bring four games to PlayStation and Switch. But why? What's Microsoft's gaming strategy? And why are they even bothering to keep selling consoles? The Triple Click gang discusses.One More Thing:Kirk: Helldivers 2 (PS5, PC)Maddy: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Naomi Klein)Jason: Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect (Benjamin Stevenson)LINKS:Preorder Jason’s Book! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jason-schreier/play-nice/9781538725429/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ 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

This episode is the largest technical leap you will ever see in a podcast generation. You can listen anywhere, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we talk about Xbox. Did you know they still make those things? Like a literal box with an X on it? But how much longer are they going to keep doing that? And should they still be doing that?

I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello. Hello. Hello. How are you guys? It's us again. Here we are.

We made it back. Yes. Back around the three-sided table at which we sit once a week. It's a triangle. It's beautiful. We got our wrist in the corner. And before we get into it, I simply got to give the hat tip to maximum fun. It's our podcasting network.

And I love them so much. And, you know, couldn't do it without them because we're listeners supported. And that means that if you want to be a part of it, Be a part of it. You'd go to maximum fund.org slash join. And you would be one of our supporters who gets a monthly bonus episode from us and also bonus content from other shows. But we're talking about triple click right now.

And what's more triple click than Marty Scorsese, which is the bonus episode that we're going to get put out this month. We are going to watch Goodfellas Casino and the Wolf of Wall Street. And we're going to spill the beans about all. all three of those movies and probably talk about some other Scorsese classics along the way, but we're definitely going to watch those three and talk about them as our bonus up. But we've also got a big backlog in there of other bonus episodes if you become a member. And they're really running the gamut.

We talked about Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Baldr's Gate 3. I'm sure we'll talk about other popular games this year. You might imagine we'll Sildaville's about some of those in the coming months. So maximum fun.org slash join is the place to go to become part of all of that. All right, Jason, what are we talking about today? This week we're talking about Xbox. And that is not a way, a derogatory way of referring to a former partner. It is in fact a video game console.

So the Xbox has had an interesting. last few weeks. I don't know if you guys have been paying close attention, but it started. It really started last month when they suddenly said, hey, we're laying off 1,900 people, mostly in Activision Blizzard, the company we just purchased for $69 billion. So that was step one. And then a couple of weeks ago, rumors started circulating about Xbox potentially bringing their games to other platforms, including some heavy hitters like Starfield and Indiana Jones. And so all of their games had already been on Xbox and PC. this was them potentially bringing their stuff to the rival PlayStation,

dun, dun, done, done, which kind of inflamed console warfare everywhere. Old school style. Yeah, really. In a way that I feel like I haven't seen in years, people were getting angry on the internet about Xbox versus PlayStation again. Well, it's interesting. Yeah, it depends.

I mean, you can see it if you know where to look. It's always there. It's always kind of like an undercurrent. It's seething. But yes, but, Maddie, to your point, the tectonic plates. It really kind of surfaced in a way that we hadn't seen in a long time.

And so Xbox responded to this by doing a video podcast where our old pal Tina Amini interviewed Phil Spencer and two of his execs, his right hand man and woman, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty. And they essentially said

much to do about nothing. They said we're bringing four games to other platforms. They didn't say what they were, but we all kind of know what they are. It's high-fi rush, it's pentament, it's sea of thieves, and it's grounded. And they

essentially were like, chill, like this isn't a huge deal. These are kind of old games, their service games. Maybe we'll bring more in the future. Who knows? Let's see what happens. And Tina asked about Starfield and Indiana Jones. She did. And Phil said no. Phil very specifically said no.

So part of this is a story about journalism, about rumors going a little too far, or I guess kind of maybe not journalism, since a lot of this is coming from the kind of the insider world. First things first. Let's talk about the journalism angle of this story. Well, the reason I say that is just because...

That's what the people want to know. Well, the reason I say that is because the rumors just kind of like we're flying hot and heavy and that's what created all this in the first place. But I want to talk about the business strategy. I think that's what's really interesting here because we are now looking at 10 plus years of Xbox kind of walking into rakes. I mean, they've been in third place in this console kind of... battle for since since the Xbox 360 era. And there's a lot to kind of unpack there. I'll

starting with the Don metric era. So let's get into that. Kirk, I want to start with you because you and I were kind of, we were in the trenches. It was our first couple of years at Kataku when the Xbox one was revealed. And then the disastrous PR strategy started unfolding. And they started of being like, it's online only. No, it's not online only. Yes, it is. And then after that kind of messaging snafu, they then fully backtracked and were like, actually, no, we're not doing this. And it was kind of this first step of this kind of disastrous era for them. Do you remember that? Do you have any fond memories of that time? I do remember it. It's a pretty vivid memory because it was the first time that I as a reporter was faced with a technology company introducing a product

that I did not understand, that it did not seem like people would want and telling us that people would want it and having to sort of reconcile those two things. Okay, I know that I think this seems ridiculous. The Connect, which was this camera voice activation device, which was attached to the Xbox One and had been released earlier for the Xbox 360 as a sort of optional peripheral. Yeah, for Just Dance and so on. Sure. It was now integral to the whole product because the idea was, was that the Xbox one was this one unifying device for your living room. So you would run your cable box through the Xbox one.

I say this and I'm kind of going over the specs for the Xbox One. I'm realizing that some of our listeners probably don't even know this because it was long ago. It had the HDMI in and out port, which was truly wild. They're probably like, what's a cable box? What are you talking about? Like our younger listeners already are going to know what you're saying right now? Like how complicated it used to be to watch television. It wasn't as easy as it is now.

I mean, I don't know. It's pretty complicated to watch television now, but that's the separate conversation. So you would run your cable box into the Xbox one, and it would become kind of like a TiVo or whatever, if any kind of those intermediary steps. And it would let you watch TV and then really seamlessly switch to gaming. And it was sort of like Microsoft repositioning themselves as an entertainment, just a more general entertainment company. This doesn't sound so controversial now, though, does it? That's what's interesting. They really banked on TV still being a thing.

Yeah, and if you remember, they had games that were coming out at the time, like Quantum Break, the Remedy Game, the Lost Remedy Game, which had a TV show within it starring major TV stars, and you would watch the TV show while playing the game. The idea being that this sort of fits aesthetically with the idea of the Xbox One being this device that goes back and forth between live action television and video games. Not just a game, a Remedy game, a game by the makers of Allen Wake, too.

Yeah, it's the lost remedy game because Microsoft still owns it, and so remedy can't make it again. Yeah, but the controversial thing, Maddie, was not this stuff. The controversial thing was that it was online only and required you to like put in discs and had licensing attached to disk. It was this convoluted system. Yes, it was kind of all of a piece. I mean, and that's to bring it back to this idea of a tech company telling you that something is going to be amazing and you thinking, I don't understand, I don't want this, I think this sucks. which obviously we've recently had that experience with crypto and the blockchain where it was the same feeling where they're like, this is amazing and I'm like, I don't understand it. So this was the first time I really remember feeling that way and thinking, this sucks? And it was all tied in with that. The idea that that's what I, the people wanted a console that could do that. The idea that online only was something that everyone was totally fine with.

The idea that like discs and games were just sort of secondary, which was largely a messaging thing. but it really was this feeling that the Xbox One didn't care as much about games. And then in the console wars of it all, the fact that Sony was out there saying, no, we're just going to make a game console that plays video games. For gamers. Well, so they did a crazy thing. So, okay, so one thing that's an important piece of context to what Kirk just explained is that this was an era where, first of all, analysts all thought the consoles were dead. 2012, 2013, there was this belief that the console was going away. Right.

This was post-mobile. There was also the biggest concern. in the video game industry at that point, which seems like totally quaint now, was used games because GameStop was making a ton of money off of selling used copies of games to people, and the game publishers were not see a dime every time a used game was sold.

That, of course, is not relevant today, and GameStop is like, man, I just passed one in the mall yesterday, and it is bleak. But back then it was. And so the reason to do this whole kind of, like, this console has to be connected to the internet every few hours, every 24 hours or whatever, and your discs have licenses attached

and you can't just give them around. That was like the most controversial part of this because people were like, what the hell? Like if I buy a game, I want to be able to own my game and share it with my friends and do whatever I want with my game. And so Sony came out and they really, they did this iconic thing that essentially like won them

that generation in a single video. At E32013, at their Sony presentation, they play this video that is like, this is how you share games on PS4. and it's Adam Boyes and Shuhay Yoshida, two of their execs at the time, just handing and came to one another. Yeah, like, and he's like, thank you. To just embarrass, and Microsoft was just totally embarrassed. They did a total 180, or I guess you could say 360, a month later, and they totally backtracked on every single plan that they had, and they were like, you know what, we're not doing this, we're just making a console, but the connect was still attached.

So they sold it for $500 instead of $400, which is where the PS4 came in. and pretty much lost the generation then and there in terms of sales. And since then, I mean, we've seen a company in Microsoft that is like not only struggled to compete with Sony and Nintendo in terms of hardware sales and also reaching broader markets, Japan and all that stuff, but also has really struggled to create the kind of first party lineup that both Sony and Nintendo had. They just do not have the killer franchises like The Last of Us or like Zelda. And that has really been a struggle for them. Even their marquee franchise Halo has really suffered over the last few years in a way that none of those other big franchises have. And so yeah, I mean, Maddie, do you think there's something in the, I know you're a big gears fan and a big Halo fan? Do you think there's something in the Microsoft waters?

Yeah, what are they going to bring back gears? Do you think there's something, like, what do you think it is that is holding Xbox back from like competing? with Sony and Nintendo on those fronts. I mean, I think the truth is they're not even trying anymore. And watching this video with Tina Amini, it's really clear that a lot of their messaging is about Game Pass now and about the idea of everyone plays, then we all win. Like, that's their little buzz phrase that they say now,

is the idea of having multiple places to play games and talking about that instead of what the games actually are. And between that and, acquisitions. They also mentioned Minecraft as one of their big acquisitions early on and a big success for them, pretty inarguable. Not something that we think of as a, I mean, because it's not, it's not a first party Microsoft game, but they're talking a lot about the acquisition game and also how easy it is to play Xbox games, because those are kind of the two pillars that they have. I mean, I'm not sitting here. I'm not going to argue to you like, oh, the next Gears game is going to come out.

it's going to be freaking amazing. There's nothing to indicate that right this very second. And I played Halo Infinite and that was that, you know? Yeah, I mean, they have tried, though. Like this strategy that you're talking about is a relatively recent thing where they're like, you know what, screw it. We're just putting everything everywhere. I mean, and it turns out not to be everything.

But like over the past 10 years or so, they've come out with franchise after franchise and none of them has been a hit on the level of their competitors. And that to me is really striking. and says something about Microsoft as a whole on the way that they make games and the way that they organize their studios and I don't know, I don't know what it is exactly. But so after the Xbox One debacle,

Don Matrick, who was running the place, got out of there. He was kind of an out-of-touch guy that a lot of people were not big fans of. And this guy, Phil Spencer, comes in and takes over, and he is a lot more loved. He is really, just internally, people at Microsoft just rave about him.

He is a really just kind of unanimously liked guy. But under him, Microsoft has still not been able to come out with those as first-party studios. And what they've done is they've snatched up a bunch of companies, to your point, Maddie, everything from like the limited integration studios, as they called like Double Fine and Obsidian, which are kind of still doing their own thing, just under the Microsoft banner, to them kind of creating their own studios to try to make really good first-party games, like 343 and like Playground, which is making a fable game now and a whole bunch of other. and still none of those have been able to come up with like a killer franchise.

We have games like everything from rise in the early Xbox One eras to like Sunset Overdrive to like Quantum Break to games like, I don't know, Recore that just never found an audience to games that are more recent that are like fable and perfect dark and a bunch of other games in those, in that kind of a cadre that aren't even happening that are like were announced five years ago and are still in production. So yeah, we have kind of a messy overall picture here. Yeah. So I think that something that's worth talking about along with Xbox is PC.

Because for me, even before the Xbox 1, the Xbox 360 was the console that was closer to a PC than the PlayStation 3 because it was, I think, easier to make games for it. There were just a lot more games on Xbox 360 that were also on PC, not Microsoft exclusive games, but games that were only on Xbox 360 for a console. and weren't on PlayStation 3. So I've always kind of associated the Xbox brand with PC gaming because Microsoft has always kind of had one foot in that world. And then at some point, they, I don't remember exactly when this was, they started releasing every single first party game also on PC and Game Pass is also on PC. And all of this created a world that I would say is far better for people who like playing

games, even while it is maybe a disadvantage in the kind of kind of kind of, console competition and the hardware sales competition that we're talking about. So we're talking about Microsoft making all these mistakes or like tactical blunders, but a lot of those so-called mistakes are also things that make it easier for someone like me who doesn't actually play games on Xbox to play every game I want to play, which is actually really great. I think it's so cool that I could play Hi-Fi Rush on PC and on Steam deck. It was on Steam. It was like no problem to play it. That's really nice. And it's cool that now that game is apparently going to come to play. PlayStation as well. And then we're seeing on the flip side, Sony releasing Hell Divers 2 on PC and

on PS5 at the same time and allowing for crossplay. And it's this huge success for them. And it's so cool that people can play it both ways. So I don't know. I feel like Microsoft was ahead of the game on something that's really cool for players, even if it's led to some, you know, it's led to some fair questions about why someone might buy an Xbox instead of just getting a PC and like a Nintendo Switch or whatever. Yeah, I think that's the point. Well, so yeah, that's the rub of it, right? Like, the idea of Xbox of Microsoft releasing all their games on all the platforms is

objectively good for players. Like, exclusives are very bad for the player because they have to spend hundreds of dollars in another piece of hardware to get those games. If you think, if you believe in like player first, whatever, consumer first, Nintendo and PlayStation should not be keeping games to themselves. Even saying consumer first is kind of loaded. Like, I think it's cool to imagine a world. without platforms where everyone can just play every game.

But we're, the three of us are, but correct, the three of us are coming out of this from a privileged position of being able to afford high-end gaming PCs and being able to generally play what we want, whatever we want. And have all the consoles. Whereas there are a lot of people out there who can only afford to spend maybe a couple hundred bucks on an Xbox Series S, which is kind of the entry level machine. And those people are looking at this as like, hey, first of all, is Microsoft not going to make hardware anymore?

Like, what am I going to do? second of all am I not getting the best experiences anymore because I bought this Xbox? To some extent I think there is definitely a level here of people who are just like I'm mad because games are coming to PlayStation

and I want them to be... Wait a minute though, but if those people feel that way, it's Sony's fault that they feel that way because Sony won't let the last of us be played on an Xbox if Microsoft starts putting their games on every platform. Oh, I know.

In no world is this a who's to blame or like what? No, but let's get down to. Let's finally figure out who's to blame. Like we are talking, let me be very clear. When it comes to exclusives, the people making their games exclusive, that is an objectively bad decision for players. Like, players all suffer when a company says, no, you can only play our game on that console.

Like, that is an exclusively profit-minded decision. I guess there's some technical advantages because if you're a game maker and you only have to make. Right. If you're a game maker and you only have to make games for a certain specification, that helps you as a game maker. So there are a couple advantages there. But from a player's point of view that is objectively bad when exclusive exists. So I guess I'm reacting to you painting a picture where a player feels bad about exclusivity going away, which was the picture you were painting with the Xbox person who's like, wait a minute.

Right. Well, so it's less that exclusivity is going away and more what to extrapolate from there. because if you see exclusivity going away, then you say, hey, is Microsoft just giving up on consoles? What's going on there? And that would be the concern if you're an Xbox player. But yes, I mean, you also have this situation where, like, like for the three of us, and I think for a lot of people out there,

it would be ideal for everything to be like PC. And really, I mean, if Microsoft, I said this years and years ago, on our podcast many years ago, if Microsoft really wanted to compete, what they should do is create a living room PC that can be, has an old. open garden unless you hook up to whatever. And that would be,

man, if you have like an entry-level PC. Yeah, sure. Make a console version. I mean, this goes beyond PC because now what they're talking about is putting their games on other platforms. Like, if you can play high-fi rush on the Nintendo's... That's what I was getting at. You know, like, that's just great.

Like, that means you don't have to be in a privileged position and have an expensive PC. You can just buy a switch and still play a bunch of games from all different kinds of game developers. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, it's 100%. good news, but if you're the Xbox player out there who's like, God damn it, like, I spent $300 on my Xbox and now I'm like, feel like it was a waste of money because there's nothing

else I can get here that I could, like everything I can get here, I could get on other things, then you are probably a little bumped. Well, and you might also be thinking, if I can play Xbox games on a PlayStation, but I can't play PlayStation games on Xbox, then why did I get an Xbox? Because those are apparently the games I can play, quote, unquote, anywhere or they're going to be, right? I mean, that's what you're getting at. Yeah, I guess the nice thing about this is that they're telling people, well, for now, there's still going to be games that you can only play on console on Xbox. And then if you did buy an Xbox, you have, you know, they're going to be new consoles in four or five years, and by then maybe the landscape will look different, and you can

make a different decision by then. So it seems like you'll still have some time to enjoy having things that make your Xbox feel special. And then when it's time to make a new decision, it could be a much easier decision to make because you can just get, I don't know, one console that can play everything. I mean, I'm certain it won't be that great, but, you know. Yeah, I mean, we don't know yet. We don't know what this roadmap is going to look like ultimately. But I think it's worth noting here that this is a company that has now spent 10 years

just kind of not only just like stepping on rakes, but like totally just not knowing where it's going while stepping on those rakes. And we've seen the strategies just kind of like shifting in all sorts of different ways over the last few years. Now, this is just kind of the latest milestone in it. I think Phil Spencer has always made it clear that he wants games that can be played anywhere. But at the same time, he's also said, like, we're going to have exclusives every three months for you, Xbox fans, and hasn't quite delivered on that stuff. Yeah. My understanding is that what happened more recently within the past couple of years, I'm not sure exactly one, is a pressure from above, above,

like Microsoft CEO Satya Nandela level to look at that reverendell. To look at that reverend. to look at those P&Ls to say, hey, like, we need to make more money off of this thing, which I think is the main reason that we are now entering a world where, like, Microsoft wants to get a million more Sea of Thieves players from other consoles. Yeah. Also, the first-party question that you asked at the outset, Jason, is probably going to haunt me for the rest of this show. Like, in my head, I've just been going through all the first-party Xbox games and being like, wow. No, no. I'm not really in that's not that didn't really work out like and I kind of just tossed off Starfield

but just the fact that at the outset of the call or with Tina Amini that podcast I shouldn't call it a call it was like a call the call of Tina Amini they were like don't worry Starfield's still going to be exclusive I'm like does anyone care about that like are there people I mean do you know what I'm saying like not not even in a way to diss that but like have people just been clamoring to play that on another platform? I'm not sure. And also, I feel like even Xbox's own messaging on this has changed so much that it was super weird to kind of go back to Console Wars rhetoric again in this conversation, because it's been a while, like many months since I've heard the full phrase Xbox Game Pass. Most of their marketing says Game Pass now, because they want you to remember that you can play it on

PC as well. And they didn't want players to be confused about that. And there's tons of games that are available on both your PC and your Xbox. And they want you to install a GamePass and the Xbox little toolbar in both places and just have cross-save and cross-play with your friends who have it on another platform. That's what they want you to be feeling like. And to hear them saying the phrase Xbox Game Pass again and talking about the Xbox ecosystem, like, it's been ages since I had any PR or conversation even with a Microsoft person that used those phrases. Those have been kind of melted away in favor of this idea that the idea, the Xbox identity doesn't matter so much as the fact that we have so many games. And their big announcement was Diablo 4 is going to be on

Game Pass. It's not a first party game. It is a great game. It's a fun game to play with your friends. But it's not an Xbox game. You have to wonder, the Activision Blizzard acquisition is such a weird part of this whole strategy. They spend so much money on that. First of all, the amount they spent on a $69 million looks a lot different today than it did two years ago where interest rates were like at the bottom of the possible at the bottom of the chart. Second of all, how does this acquisition fit into their strategy at all? I mean, they've talked about like mobile games and wanting to get more into the mobile space, which makes sense if you're a gaming company, but like how does that fit into what you were

trying to do with all the rest of your branches? Are you really just, you just want candy crushed? And like that's what you're going for here? None of it really makes sense to me. Yeah. I wonder if they kind of want a Fortnite. I mean, a game that's just cross-platform on just about every single platform

allows for cross-play is not really branded super heavily to, in Fortnite's case, epic, but just a game that is so ubiquitous and very profitable that they can just make money off of it purely as a software company. Well, everyone wants a Fortnite.

And if anyone's going to make something like that, Blizzard could be a company that would make it and also has several games that at least function in that realm. So it makes sense in that way. Right. I mean Diablo, it's not a Fortnite per se,

but it's a big, fun, multiplayer game that you can chat with your friends on voice chat while you're playing it. That part of it very much reminds me of a Fortnite or a Roblox and that it's as much a social platform as it is a game. But also, follow-up question, should we be referring to Diablo as a first-party Xbox game now?

Like, I just said that it wasn't, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is. Maybe it's a win. And if you don't have any good first-party games, the solve is buy them. And then you do. Well, you know, and that kind of ties in with what you were saying, Maddie, about how Xbox as a brand is not a super, like they're not leaning on it super hard right now.

Because Bethesda is a really strong brand and a brand that people associate with good games, machine games who are making that Indiana Jones game. People associate them with fun single-player games. They're like naughty dog. They're like, you know, Insomniac, these studios that Sony owns or bought. and, you know, just let's speak for themselves because those brands are really strong. So I could see that continuing.

I mean, I'm certain that's going to continue with Blizzard. Blizzard is one of the strongest brands in all of the video games. No, 100%. I mean, yes, Blizzard is up there, and World of Warcraft still prints money. Yeah. Did you guys know that World of Warcraft classic, the servers that are just kind of recreating the old stuff,

is like as big or almost as big as the modern entries? I did know that because I think you talk about it in your book. It's pretty, wild. It's like that thing is printing money. Yeah, I didn't know it was so successful. And obviously, Call of Duty is big. I have no I mean, the argument I'm making is not necessarily that these guys aren't

big, heavy hitters. Like, they bought a bunch of hits. I was at an Xbox party I think it was the Game Awards a few months ago, and they had a big banner that was like showing, it was like a big ABK mixer, and it was like the Candy Crush person next to Diablo, next to Master Chief, next to like

some other like Starfield dude or something like that. It was pretty wild to see. Yeah. But yes, I mean that, having all of that for sure makes sense if you want to make the next Smash Brothers.

Like, I get having all of those IPs smash together. Or Fortnite. We call those Fortnites now, Jason. Yeah, right? Create a Fortnite. Create your Battle Royale Metaverse. They did say when they were buying ABK, they did say, like, this is our Metaverse play, but that was 2022.

Again, different time. That's how that's how long ago it was. when the metaverse is still a relevant thing that people talked about. Yeah. I mean, also we don't feel as much anxiety about the idea of something being disc-free now. Like, I just feel like that conversation has completely changed. And it's not just because GameStop isn't as much of a thing anymore. I think it's just that Internet access has continued to grow around the world.

It's still not even close to where I think it should be for Phil Spencer's dream to be fully realized. And I think that everyone in reality knows that. but in marketing land, we have to pretend that's not the case and that going totally online for console is a great business move no matter what. But it is interesting to look back on those arguments from 10 years ago that we were talking about where people were like, but I can't share games anymore. We're already in that reality. I already purchase a license to a game and I can't share it with anyone. I already don't own anything anymore. That's just my life now. Things go on Game Pass and they go away. I don't own anything on Game Pass. I can install.

all yakuza, but I better beat it before they take it away. Like, that's, that's just how it works. Well, that's a different, well, buying a digital thing is different than Game Pass. But yeah, I mean, timing is everything. They missed, they came out with a digital console too early in the same way that games that tried to do Battle Royale a couple years before Fortnite missed the boat on that in the same way that I think I just saw stories today that like other people were trying to to do similar things to Hell Divers too, and that got canceled, and that didn't work out, and Hell Divers reams supreme. I mean, sometimes all you need is timing and business. But I do want to say, I think that, like, in general, this idea of putting your games on everything as a

game company is, like, something that is net beneficial. It, like, benefits more people than not. I just think that when you do that, it's tough to do that and also make your own hardware, because so much of the current model for selling hardware lies upon you have to buy this closed machine because you can get games on it that you can't get anywhere else. And it's very hard to imagine them not just consistently underselling the Xbox if they're going to continue to do that while at the same time they're still releasing all their games on PC, releasing some of their games potentially on Switch and PlayStation. Like that strategy is part of what doesn't make sense to me for Xbox.

Mm-hmm. You don't think they just make money and say. such a different way now that the fact that they're getting away from hardware isn't as much of a concern for them. And it is, of course, a concern for the people on the internet who come forward in times like this and get very anxious about like, oh, does it even mean anything to own an Xbox anymore? And what are they going to stop making consoles then and just become a software company? Like, those are the kinds of kind of fearful arguments that Phil Spencer had to address right off the top and be like, don't worry, there's still Xbox games.

we're still going to make another Xbox console. But that probably isn't where they're making most of their money now, right? I mean, it's probably all Game Pass, right? I mean, I guess we don't know. Yeah, I mean, you could imagine a world where the next Xbox or where a future Xbox is essentially that gaming PC that we were describing earlier. It's a place you log into, right? And it's a piece of hardware that plugs into your TV.

But it just play, it is basically a PC and all the games on it are also on PC. And it's just for people who want something easier to use than a gaming PC and want that device. And it's just one option among many, just sort of like TVs or anything else. And I don't know, I could see that. And given what you're saying, Maddie, and I think that that could well be true, that they're not making a ton of money on hardware anyways. It's just something that they make in addition to all the software they're making, which is where they're making most of their money.

To be clear, it's not that they're not making a ton of money on hardware. they're actively losing money on every piece of hardware they sell. Yeah, so like even more of a reason. And this is what in the case. They sell Xboxes at a loss, and this has been the case for a while. I think Sony also sells PlayStation's at a loss. I believe the Switch is profitable. But those machines are worth being sold at a loss

because Xbox, therefore, can sell you games on their store and not have to pay a 30% cut to whatever store they're selling on. And presumably you'll buy enough software to justify that, or you'll just buy enough of their software, or they'll take a cut, a 30% cut of all the other games that are being sold there. So for them, it's worth it. But at what point does it become not worth it? And I think that's a viable question.

And that's the reason to look at the console sales, right? Like, it's not, the only person to whom it matters that PlayStation is outselling Xbox 2 to 1 are really the only people that number actually matters to are the console warriors. Like, who cares? what the numbers look like. The proportion might not matter, but if one console is lagging so far behind

that the business starts not making sense anymore, then people at the Satya Nadella and Amy Hood level start to wonder, like, why are we still making consoles? And the more that Microsoft moves away from exclusives, the fewer units are going to sell unless they find some other, like, useful gimmick. And Xbox GamePass was in theory like a good way to do that. but the fact that they put it on P, that they have it on PC as well, and could potentially put it on other platforms.

Like, if there's really no selling point to the hardware, then why are you selling the hardware? That's the thing I don't understand. And I'm not saying this as a like, I wish that Microsoft would put exclusives on their hardware sort of thing. In fact, I think, like I said before, I think the way for them to go that is most beneficial to everybody is to release living room PCs because those, I think, would sell well and be open to everybody. and just like check all the boxes that they're trying to hit here. Let me throw this out there. What if Microsoft released a Steam Deck style handheld gaming PC? Because the Steam Deck has proved to be pretty popular,

and I could see Microsoft making a pretty great device. Like their controllers, killer, they clearly have good engineers. Sony's putting out that like weird PS5 handheld. Well, that's like a streaming device. Right, if they put out something that was better than that. Well, I just mean like the handheld trend is in the air. Everyone's talking about handhelds. They're out there.

Well, so the trick to that would need to be open garden. And that's the thing where I really just can't understand Microsoft strategy. Like, look, if you're putting your games on everything, if you're all about like platforms and not hardware anymore, you want to be on everything, fine. Great. That's a great strategy. Yeah, do it for real. And open up your box.

Because people will get mad, Jason? Well, no. You got to have their cake and eat it too. No, hold on. Maddie, what I'm saying is you take your box and you say, hey, we're going to let you crack this thing up and put steam on it and put whatever you want on it, which maybe putting steam on it, maybe that doesn't make sense for them because they suddenly lose their 30% cut from the store on there.

But if you open it up to people, it will be so much more appealing as a hardware device. And that could be the gimmick that you have. That could be the selling point that you have over the PlayStation and over the switch since you're not doing exclusives anymore. Right. And Microsoft has the infrastructure in place for this, given that they make the dominant previous generation operating system in Windows. Yeah, why wouldn't you do a console's Windows?

That was an operating system before iOS and, you know, all of these closed operating systems where, you know, only Apple can sell things through iOS. Microsoft, I mean, you run Steam through Windows right now. That is a Microsoft operating system. Unless you use Windows. Or, I mean, I meant you as in the two of you, all three of us do. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, could you imagine?

I mean, what if they do a handheld Steam Deck thing that lets you run Windows on it? and so it's kind of an open machine instead of like you must go through our Xbox operating system and play by our rules in here. I mean, I would like that. That's already been the defining attribute of the Steam Deck competitors that don't use Proton and run Windows instead.

They just haven't, they're not quite as good as the Steam Deck another way. Yeah, it would need to be. It's a little easier and I don't have to like read extensive how to documentation on trying to get Chiaki to work on my freaking Steam Deck. The file system isn't an elaborate of madness. I would actually really appreciate if the Xbox bigwigs would go ahead and put out something that made a little easier for me to just, you know, play PlayStation games on their console.

Yeah, open up the freaking box. Open up the garden, whatever medical we're doing. That might do it. Because like it's hard to imagine. I mean, what else is the selling point? Like last generation with the Xbox Series X, they tried to make their selling point that this is the most powerful hardware. And I believe I said at the time, doesn't mean anything right now because you don't have a game that can take advantage of it. Well, and then you look at the Switch with Tears of the Kingdom, the most advanced and exciting game of all time running on this ancient. But have you seen what the Xbox can bench and what it can deadlift? Right.

It can deadlift 380. It's really impressive. How vascular is your console? It's got so many, so many veins. So vainy. It's so strong, you guys. So, yeah, I mean, we're like in this world where Xbox is. So Xbox said, like, hey, we have the most powerful console. Three years and three months later, that means nothing.

Like I said at the time, it meant nothing then. It means nothing now. Nobody, when is the last time you saw a game that was, like, running significantly better on the Xbox than it was on the PlayStation? Like, that's not happening. And we're not in a world where that matters at all. So they really need to, I mean, can you guys think of any other selling points or, like, why would they make a console?

I mean, no, because I feel like the people who want that, quote, unquote, most powerful thing are just going to build a PC or buy a PC, and they can still play Xbox games on there. So there you go. 100%. So if you're trying to market to the hardware enthusiasts, you've already lost them because they can just go ahead and buy something extremely powerful that isn't necessarily an Xbox,

but can still play Xbox games. So even talking about hardware, which they do, they did have a line in the interview with Tina about, oh, but our next Xbox in 2025 or whatever was, There's like a quote they said where they were like, that one's going to be really powerful. It's going to knock your socks off. They leaned on it again, just the classic console manufacturer line of, well, the next generation, you just won't believe it. Your eyes are going to melt.

Did they say, they didn't say 20, 25, right? No, they didn't. I made that up. Yeah, I think further than that. But, yeah. It'll be, we'll be on another planet by then. And we'll all be like, you know, strapped into VR headsets. and it'll be more powerful than anything we can possibly imagine.

And so this is the core tension, right? It's this paradox of like, we want you to play games on everything, but we also want to sell you the most powerful console, and we want you to play games on there too. And you need it to play games, except you don't, because we're also giving them to you on every other platform. Because they're all on PC, and we're going to sell you this thing for 500 bucks,

which for which you could just get a seam deck and play our games on there anyway. It just, none of this makes sense to me as a business strategy. So again, we're entering now like 11 years of, I don't want to say incompetence, but certainly business questions to their business. Weird messaging. And I do think it's a product of the fact that we all grew up in the console wars and that's what Phil Spencer's still negotiating in the marketing messaging he has to do every day. Like he has to deal with this. Like he had to do this interview earlier than his original plan because people were freaking out on the internet so hard. Like, that's why he talked to everyone. That's wild. That still matters to him.

It's a question that we don't really get all the data, get enough data to answer. But basically the question of, is it better to have as many people as possible playing a game? Yes. Or is it better to restrict the number of people playing the game in order to incentivize them to buy our hardware and then all the store and our percentage? Well, from a business perspective, yes, Kirk, to your point, we don't have all of the data and the, the, Elapacity of these game companies is a problem. Even the ones that are publicly traded can just kind of bury some of their stuff in a line on their earnings sheet. And so you can see some percent of how their Xbox division performs compared to the overall business,

but you don't need to see the numbers of the hardware and the software and stuff. But yes, that's a good question, right? Like, would it, for PlayStation, would they make more money selling the last of us on all of their, on every platform? Or does it make more money for it to bring in new users? into the PlayStation system. That is a good question. It is somewhat a question that, you know, they require more data in order to answer because they're just starting to do it. I mean, Hell Divers is this very interesting example of this, where it's the first time Sony has done day and date on PS5 and Steam, and it's this crashing success.

Obviously, it's just one data point. But for especially that kind of game for like an ongoing online service game, you totally can see how it could work out. And then as games like that actually are released and they get data back on it, you can see the moving more in that direction if it winds up, you know, if it still is that successful. You know, the next time they do it and the next time someone tries this. Yeah, well, part of it also is kind of appealing to a certain type of person and looking at your target demographic. In Sony's case, they're very much like, we want this to be known as the place for these big cinematic open world action adventure narrative stuff. And so that stuff is

always going to be exclusive to the PlayStation first and then maybe come to PC later, as many of their games have. And maybe even HBO later. than coming to TV. As opposed to Hell Divers 2, which Hell Divers 2 is more of like this is an online shooter thing. We want people as many people as possible to be playing with their friends on it.

It makes a lot more sense to release that day and day on PC. So it's very much about the brand of the console and the Nintendo has similar stuff where it's like we have these games that have a certain Nintendo feel, Genaziqua, and you can only play them on the Switch. I mean, well, the Nintendo is like the kings of exclusivity and everyone just puts up with that. Like, it's so funny to even have them in the conversation

because it's like, where else are you going to play Mario? It's just, it's open and shut to such an extent, you know? Yeah, they're just so distinct in terms of their hardware limitations in terms of the games that they make that Sony and Microsoft have been just ever pulling closer to one another by their gravitational pull. Yeah, adjusting. They make consoles that are so similar in terms of hardware.

They run so many of the same games that it just becomes harder and harder to not be like, why aren't they both just, why don't they just kiss? Like, basically, because they're so close. Nintendo has kind of always been just over at another part of the playground because their hardware is so different. Their whole stable games are so different. Definition of success is different.

Yeah, I mean, from a business perspective, in Microsoft and Sony, we're talking about two companies that are struggling. In fact, Sony just came out with some recent earnings report and their stock took a big hit because they missed their expectations on PS5 sales. Their profit margins are not where they need to be. Basically, they're not making the type of money that their investors are expecting. Same situation. And they just announced, right, that they don't have any major games coming out for a very long time as well,

which could not have made anybody happy, or at least anybody operating according to shareholder logic. Yeah, God, yeah. So that, and with them specifically, it's a problem of budgets, right? their games are costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make and they are not seeing the kind of returns that they need to because nothing is going to see the kind of returns that you need to except GTA to deliver on that. I know. And Nintendo just announced, even though there are rumors now that Nintendo is delaying the Switch 2 to 2025, which should be bad news for all of our predictions, Nintendo is like the richest company in Japan. So Nintendo is still killing it and the Switch is like going to outsell the PS2 potentially. this year and become the most, the biggest console ever.

Yeah. And yet, but we also live in a world where like, no one could get a PS5 at first because they were so coveted and yet years later, they're like, well, no, that was supply change. But it's just so weird that we live in a world where I feel like, oh, so PS5s are so cool and so expensive. And now a lot of people have one finally. And yet I'm still being told that Sony is struggling. Like, I do understand the math there and how we got here, but it's just so weird, you know?

They had to be successful beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, in order for it to work. Yeah, I mean, it's an expensive console that runs expensive to make games. The PS5 is not a massive success, despite it being hard to get. Right. It is selling pretty much the same clip, maybe even a little slower than the PS4. It is not like that, that narrative is because of the supply chains, 100%. It's not because so many people wanted that. Yeah. And the narrative doesn't match up with the fact that they would have had to outsell just absurdly,

beyond my imagination in order to make suckledish happy, I guess, because that's just how everything works if you aren't outperforming. Well, especially if you're making a new console that's incredibly expensive to make and you're making games for it that are incredibly expensive to make. Right. I mean, the thing to keep in mind here is that, like, as much as we can say, like, oh, shareholder expectations are crazy, they shouldn't expect infinite growth, which is all totally fair to argue. Yeah, but also it's all expensive.

We're also talking about, yeah, we're also talking about budgets that have, like, quadrupled since, since 10 years ago. So there is a kind of you do need growth to keep up with that and really someone needs to say hey we're putting an end to this, we're putting a cap on like our graphical fidelity expectations. And like meanwhile the switches in the background being like

we may or may not put out the switch too. We're just going to keep selling switches forever for years and years and years and you can still play Animal Crossing. Yeah, I mean the graphical arms race just participating in that is kind of a problem. All right. We're going to going to take a break and then we will be back with Xbox one more thing. Have you ever wanted to know the sad lore behind Chuck Echise's love of birthday parties?

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It is. My one more thing is Hell Divers 2, one of the best video games I've played in a very long time. It came out of nowhere and totally rules. And I'm very excited to tell listeners and the two of you about it. So as I'm sure a lot of people know, just from headlines, this game, Hell Divers 2 suddenly became the hottest thing since, I don't know. I don't know. Since Powell World? Yeah, since Powell World. Yeah.

Kind of has usurped Powell World in the... video game headline generation games. The hottest thing in three weeks. Yep. Yeah. It's the new hottest. Hell Divers is a sequel to a 2015 game that I notably wrote about and tried to tell the world to play back in 2015 with the headline that was based something along the lines of

Hell Divers what is basically Starship Troopers, the video game. And you know, Hell Divers 2 is even more Starship Troopers, the video game, and is incredibly fun. So this is a online game playable with up to four people, pretty much a co-op multiplayer player game that I would say feels a little like an extraction shooter actually, even though it's PVE, you're not fighting against other players, but it is the thrill of going into dangerous territory and completing objectives and blowing shit up and then getting extracted and waiting for pickup and holding off the onslaught of the horde so that you can get onto the ship and

fly away. That's the kind of type of game it is. It's a third person over-the-shoulder shooter. but what makes it special is, well, the vibe, the humor, the writing, and the world, that's part of it. And part of it is actually how kind of hostile to the player it is in a lot of really amazing ways. And that's just kind of what I wanted to mention about it here, since I'm guessing we'll probably talk about it more in the future. Definitely. This game is very much styled after Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, this kind of ironic fascist world. It's called Super Earth that you're a citizen of. And on Super Earth, they have managed democracy, which is like democracy, but it's a little more predictable.

We manage the outcomes a little more. And so if you've seen that, Starship Troopers, it is very much the world of, would you like to know more? I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say, blow them all the hell. It's very much like, there are bug aliens out there in our colonies and we're going to go kill them. And so you play as a meathead grunt called a helldiver who is extremely disposable soldiers sent by Super Earth's military. from a giant battleship that you get to name one of a bunch of really amazing names. Mine is called the Queen of Wrath,

but there are a lot of very funny ones like the, I don't even remember, the patriarch of the Constitution or something, they can have very funny names. So they're like Destiny Gunn names. Even sillier. It's all very, very silly. Like, everyone is just yelling about democracy all the time.

The tutorial in this game is hysterically funny. So you go out with your ship and then you meet up with your friends, and what's going on in this game is a kind of ongoing war. There's a warfront that is updated in real time according to everybody's game. And because this game is extremely popular, like that's been the ongoing narrative of it over the past week is that it's broken 400,000 concurrence on Steam.

It's like about to crack the top five. We're recording this on Monday, so maybe by the time people are listening to this, it will have. It's been very hard to play it because the servers are just a total disaster. I have been able to play on and off, but it's been very, very frustrating. I will note that because I know a lot of people are very frustrated by it, even though I'm going to mostly just focus on the game. I should note that.

They say they're going to have a server fix this week, I think. Probably by the time people are listening, it should be easier to play. But it has been pretty annoying. So anyways, you get with your friends, and then there's this battle map that you go over to. You can all four go up to the map and look at it together, like a kind of G.I.J.O. screen, which is sort of fun. And you're all in the ship, you know, in the same space. And you pick a battle, and, like, the warfront is, like, it'll show, you know, percent liberated of this front. and that's like some bug planet

and it's a little bit percent liberated and each time you go and do a mission it moves the needle a little bit further and then over time new fronts are going to expand right now you can either go fight bugs that look just like the bugs from Starship Troopers or robots that look just like the Terminator and like they're very different missions

like it's really fun how different they are but those are the two fronts and in the first game there was a third kind of enemy they were called the Illuminate and they were like an alien psychic species so it's really the Zerg and the Terran, and then they're going to hopefully add the protas. So there's like, you'll get missives from Super Earth where it's like,

a new front has opened up or like, we've had to fall back from here, and you're following this real-time battle that everyone alongside you is fighting, which is very cool and something the first game did as well. So then you drop in with your three teammates, and it's very much the feeling of like a total war zone. There's like ships overhead. You're like on an empty battlefield and it's quiet, too quiet. And you kind of, you call in, you know, resuffalo.

and you start moving toward your objective. This game looks over the shoulder, like a, you know, over the shoulder shooter, which is a change from the first game, was kind of top down. There's a lot of calling in stuff from orbit. So you're shooting just guns. You have a heavy gun, a light gun, a sidearm, typical kind of stuff. You're very squishy. You can die very easily. But a lot of what you do are what are called stratagems.

So you hold down the shoulder button and then you have to input D-pad combinations for each stratagem. And this is something that Arrowhead Studio is. This is a Swedish developer that made this, the first Hell Divers. They made the Magica games. They've been messing with this forever. And it's this great idea that I've really never seen in other games, but where you're under fire and you're like, oh, my God, I have to call in an airstrike. And you bring up the thing and it's like, okay, down, down right.

And you're kind of looking while trying to not get shot. And then you have a little, like, grenade that you throw that then in a minute calls in a super intense air strike. I remember this from the first game. So you can also call in, you know, more guns or, like a big heavy gun. There aren't mecks suits or anything. There were in the first game.

I'm guessing they're going to add that kind of stuff or maybe even vehicles. And air strikes are a huge part of this game. I played a lot last night with three friends and we were all on Mike playing together. And like with four people, when you're going all in, we were fighting the robots

and everyone is like calling in like cluster bomb strikes from planes that are flying overhead. And the game looks really amazing. I think the lighting is like beautiful. And so it's like the world is exploding. You're shooting. Meanwhile, your character is screaming like, come get some democracy

and blowing shit up and everyone is constantly dying as well so I mentioned the player unfriendly thing and that's I guess the last thing or one of the last things I'll focus on here is that there are a lot of really cool frictions in this game I think the gameplay is fantastic

the shooting feels really good but there are all these things that make it a little harder to play you're not actually very empowered in some ways even though you're able to call down the wrath of God with a couple of D-pad button presses so one thing is, for example, you're shooting your gun. If you just reload after shooting a few times, you throw out the magazine and all the bullets

in it. So you can run out of ammo, and you run out of ammo pretty regularly, and it's terrible when that happens, and there's like 10 bugs coming at you, and you're like, oh, my God, I'm out of ammo, and you switch to your sidearm, and you're trying to get away, and it's very desperate. So you always have to be managing ammo, and you have to think about how you use your guns, and all the weapons are like that. There are, like, rocket launchers that a friend can come and load for you, so you load them

much more quickly. And if a robot tank is coming at you, you need to team up and do that. So there are these kind of all of these tensions introduced, or frictions, I guess, introduced to the game that make it really fun. There's also the fact that friendly fire is on. You're constantly killing one another in various ways because these like airstrikes that you're calling in are ludicrous. Like you'll call in like, I don't even know some of the things that my friends were calling

in. And you kind of, you're like, okay, everyone, I'm calling in an airstrike. But it's happening so fast that you're regularly blowing one. one another up. And then you just call in a resupply and a new hell diver drops in and that player begins to control them. So it's not like you respawn, you just start controlling yet another faceless grind. In fact, the default of the game is that your voice changes. So you're a different person and there's a bunch of different voices. So the idea is just like you're all just like meat for the meat grinder. Like you're all just getting killed because Super Earth doesn't care

about any of these hell divers. They're just completely disposable. So over the course of a mission, and you're just dying and being replaced with some other guy, and you just keep going. So it's, like, very much not a power fantasy. It's, like, a comedy game about idiot, fascist soldiers blowing one another up in a pointless war that's also really, really fun to play and hilarious. And then leads to, like, endless memeable moments.

I mean, every mission that I've played has had, like, three or four things happen that are hilarious. I gather this game is, like, massive on, like, TikTok and everywhere where you can just be sharing, like, dumb videos of hilarious things that happened, just because it, like, just generates that. It's so good. I'm really, like, amazed by how funny, fun, and compelling it is. There's, like, a battle pass system you can pay, but there's also just a free one.

And I get the sense that they're kind of not, like, nickel and dimeing people with microtransactions. But the battle pass system is really compelling. Like, I really like unlocking new stuff. And, like, I'm kind of always getting new stratagems or new guns that I can use. And you're on the free one? Yeah, I'm on the free one. And, like, and I find that, like, the stuff you start with is super fun. It's fun from the drop. You already have crazy stuff you can call down. And then you just will look at what you might unlock at level 10 and be like, oh, well, that looks even cooler.

Like, I'll play some more and get that. So really, especially if you have friends, this is a fantastic game. I think this is a game that the three of us would have a great time playing together. And yeah, especially once they get it working better, I can't recommend it enough. Oh, and it has crossplay. You can play with people between PS5 and PC, which is super cool as well. Just like a hell of a game and a real surprise, even though I liked the first one. I didn't see the success of this one coming.

Well, the trailer was so generic. And I remember being so disappointed because the first one was like top-down twin stick. And I thought that was cool and different. And then seeing the trailer for Hell Divers 2, and it looks like a generic third-person shooter. But it sounds like... It's funny, you know, I was a little worried when I watched that trailer, the one with a song about rocking together or whatever.

And then it was playing on the Steam Channel after I had played a few hours of the game. And I was like cracking up and cackling and loving the trailer. So I think, yeah, I get what you're saying even. now I watch that trailer and I'm like, oh, this trailer is perfect. Totally captures the game, like Game of the Year. Yeah, I mean, when you don't know it. But anyway, apparently it didn't matter. Trailers do not matter.

Maddie, what's your one more thing? My One More Thing is a book I have only just started reading, but I'm already so into it, and I think everyone should read it. And I didn't expect that at all. I just thought it would be fun and dark. It's called Doppelganger, A Trip Into the Mirror World, and it's by Naomi Klein, who is an author often confused with the now alt-right reactionary author Naomi Wolf, who originally was sort of a second-wave feminist writer. People probably know the beauty myth as her kind of 90s pop

feminism book. And since then, she's really gone down a weird path and now is fully in scones in Steve Bannon's world of podcasting. And she's super into conspiracy theories about COVID. And Naomi Klein is a leftist and has been the whole time and has to mix up. Wait, why are they confused just because they're both named Naomi? Well, so it's weird. It's very weird because I don't think of their names as being particularly similar, but they do visually look somewhat similar. And they're both authors.

And they started off both kind of having leftist politics. And so Naomi Klein's book kind of starts just in chronological order with the first time she got mixed up with Naomi Wolf, which happened in 2011 at an Occupy Wall Street protest that she attended, where she literally overhears other women talking in the bathroom about something that Naomi Klein said that was totally out of touch. I see. So this book, Dopplganger, is specifically about the thing that the mix up between these two. Okay, okay, okay. It's about the fact. I thought you were just like table setting about who Naomi Klein is, but that's what the book is there. That's what the book's about. That is what I thought the whole book would be about was just Naomi Klein slowly losing her mind.

over the past 10 years, over this really weird thing that's been happening to her, where this other woman has become just totally weird, right-wing conspiracy nut. And they both were just authors to begin with who kind of had anomaly progressive politics, but now they've completely diverged. And again, I don't consider their names to be that similar, but somehow this has just become a thing in Naomi Klein's life. And she talks about how it happened and how weird it is. And I was like, I'm down to just read a book about how weird

that is. But the book is actually significantly cooler than that because it ends up being about how easy it is for this to happen and how eventually it became such a joke on Twitter that they were confusable that people would actually like get auto-complete Naomi Klein if they were trying to at Naomi Wolf and vice versa because of just the way that Twitter works. And so they were intrinsically linked forever basically because people started making jokes about them and that just became something that Naomi Klein had to deal with and Naomi Wolf presumably for however many years it's been. And so in some ways, it's sort of a very personal raw book about Naomi Klein going kind of crazy and listening to Steve Bannon's podcast a lot and alienating

her friends and family because she's so obsessed with this person that she's mistaken for. And she's like, I hate this person's politics, but everyone thinks I'm her and I don't know why this is happening to me, which would have been a book on its own maybe. But then it also becomes her talking about how much the internet and personal brands and technology have changed to allow this to happen to other people all the time, whereby all of us kind of have people who have similar names to us on the internet that we're aware of, or at least I know I do, there's many other Maddie Myers is out there and other Maddie's that I've been mistaken for all the time. That's just a road thing that happens to us. But because of that and because of the way that personal

branding works online, all of us have to constantly find new ways to distinguish ourselves. And it just, it's ended up being this really weird, cool book about AI art of people and kind of fake versions of people and how much fakery is a part of internet identity. And I don't even know how to explain what the book is now. But every, every chapter, I'm like learning something new and thinking about the internet in a different way and also thinking about the way I market my own writing and the idea of my personal brand and who am I and I don't know it's really taking me on a weird trip so does she talked to Naomi Wolf? I don't know I haven't finished the book but I hope so I mean they they have talked on the internet quite a bit because they're constantly mistaken for each other so in that sense

they know each other quite well but so weird I don't know I really recommend it so it's called doppelganger and it's by Naomi Klein I guess if you look for doppelganger by Naomi Wolf, you might still find it. I don't know. My One More Thing is a book as well. It's a book called Everyone on This Train is a suspect by Benjamin Stevenson and is the sequel to a book that I read, I think last year or two years ago, called Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. And this book, like that one, kind of is narrated by this guy who is constantly breaking the fourth wall and talking about the rules of murder mysteries and how they function and saying stuff like

the killer in this book is mentioned by name, 106 times, stuff like that. Nice. And so there's all sorts of kind of hidden riddles and meta text. And it's very cute. It's very entertaining. You can get a little bit much, just like the first book. This one I would say, I mean, I didn't like it quite as much as the first one because some of the novelty of that stuff is gone, but still very interesting. still a very easy, breezy read that I just kind of got through on a plane ride last week.

So enjoyed it and definitely would recommend it as a kind of just enjoyable little experience. I'm not going to blow your mind or anything, but just a very fun read that I enjoyed. And so the premise here, of course, is that he's on a train with a bunch of other murder writers, kind of murder fiction writers, mystery fiction writers, and someone gets killed. and maybe more than one person gets killed and who's responsible or who are the people responsible. Those are the big questions. And then there's a fun little subplot about the narrator and his girlfriend and the question of whose story gets told and whose story is this because she is also a writer. And so there's some kind of interesting ideas there.

But yeah, it was fun. Didn't blow my mind or anything, but very fun read. Once again, everyone on this train is a suspect. Of course, very Agatha Christie of it all. Good title. Very memorable. It is memorable. I love a well-titled murder mystery.

Good title. All right, guys, Kirk, Manny, it is time for us to say goodbye. It is. See you both next week. Yeah, 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. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member

of the Maximum Fun podcast network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes.

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