Triple Click - Whoa, Microsoft Bought Bethesda

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Well hey, if we had known Bethesda was on the market for only $7.5 billion, we would have made a bid! Maddy, Jason, and Kirk talk about Microsoft's major acquisition, plus the big PS5 news last week (Final Fantasy XVI!!!) and the reality that video games are going to cost $70 very soon. Plus, the brilliant, beautiful Hades and other One More Things.One More ThingKirk: Super Mario GalaxyMaddy: Pen15 season twoJason: HadesLinksSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinMusic Featured: “The Painful Way” by Darren Korb from the Hades OST“Overture” by Koji Kondo & Mahito Yokota from the Super Mario Galaxy OST 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 week, Microsoft bought Zenimex for $7.5 billion. If they don't like it, they can bring it back to GameStop for $10.50. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about the big news, Microsoft's major acquisition plus Sony's big PS5 presentation, including Final Fantasy 16. That is right. 16. I'm Jason Dreyer. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. And here we are. We're back for another episode. We are. Back again. Click our way into your hearts. Before we get started, a couple of things. First of all, a big shout out to all of you out there who have supported the show so far

by becoming Max Fun members. Just a reminder to those of you who have not already become members, you can join at maximum fun.org slash join. You get free access to, well, I guess it's not free. You get access to our bonus content, including our monthly beans casts. I believe this month's we are talking about calls. All of Duty for Modern Warfare. So look out for that.

That will be hitting next week, I believe next Monday, but early next week for subscribers for members, for Max Munn members. And yeah, thank you. Thank you again. And if you can't afford to support the show, that's really no problem. And we will not hold it against you. But one thing you can do, even if you can't pay or don't want to pay,

is tell your friends and share the show with your friends. We very much appreciate any support you can give us like that. One more thing before we get started, I want to read to you guys a couple of things. Yeah, that's not the segment we're in, Jason. What are you even saying? One other thing. An additional thing. I want to show you to, I want to read to you, too, from something.

Okay. Here are some predictions. You ready? Okay. Okay. Number one, Microsoft will buy a major company, not just another mid-tier studio, but something that makes us all say, wow. Oh, no.

Number two, Microsoft will bring GamePass to a non-Microsoft platform. Oh, no. Final Fantasy 16 will be announced. Those are all predictions that I made. Who's predictions? And all turned out to be correct in the past, like, month. But here's the twist. They're all from 2019.

They are. They are. They are. They're all from last year. All three of these predictions came true in the past month, and they are all from last year. That is horrible. That is just horrible.

All my 2020 predictions are completely. completely wrong. For those of you don't understand what we're talking about, by the way. Yeah, please. Since the last show that we hosted, since our last podcast, we've done a yearly game where we all make predictions about the year, and then the winner gets to tell the other two to play a game. And for some reason, this year, it was really hard to make predictions about what would happen. I can't think of anything that would have possibly impacted our predictions for 2020. Why would it be a weird, a weird world to make predictions? It's all going according to plan. I just want to point out that my track record is impeccable.

if you only look at last year and write this year. If you're two years out. So I feel like this year when you write your predictions, you need to just forward them to yourself a year from now and then write different predictions. Don't ask me how you'll come up with those. Maybe just use this year's again. I don't know.

That's what you do. Oh, man. Well, so if I look at my 2018 predictions, one of them is like, oh, man, everything. All of my 2018 predictions are true for 2019. Amazing. We will get our first rumors of next gen consoles. Nintendo will announce a sequel to Breath of the Wild.

So people can learn from this, one, to look at your predictions and then just take them another year out. And then to go back two years for your predictions. And the other one is, and I do this is I'll reuse. I've reused my predictions before. And I think they've gotten them before. It does, yeah, it's fair because you're like, this is still going to happen. Like the unionizing one. I think I got a point for Valve announcing a half-life.

That one still hasn't happened. Yeah. I think that unionizing one. is going to happen this year. I'm kind of regretting that I didn't put it in my list. My 2018 predictions are Kingdom Hearts 3 will come out and have Pixar Worlds came out in 2019.

Someone will try selling a game for more than $60. Well, that happened this year. So that's a whole thing this year. Here we go. Yeah, it's coming. It's coming. Anyway, let's get into the episode. Today, we have a sudden news. Sudden news. That's the name of our news segment when there's

suddenly news. It's not breaking news. No, it's sudden news. No, it's sudden news. This is like Maddie Myers' invention, sudden news. Yes. It's definitely not because I forgot the phrase breaking news briefly because my brain has been broken by society and I was like, sudden news. It's because sudden news is what you say and it's what you always say.

That's what we probably said. No, we're all news people. We're all journalists. Yeah, of course. We've been saying this for years. Some sudden news. So in the past week since we recorded last week's episode, there's been a lot of sudden news. It's true.

It felt like a good time to just guys. to sit down and break it down. Let's start with last week's, and then we'll get into this week's Big Megaton. So last week, Sony did a surprise big PS5 presentation, and they announced a bunch more stuff, including stuff that trickled out afterwards. So a few key takeaways from this that I want to discuss with you guys. First of all, holy shit, Final Fantasy 16 is coming. You too probably don't have the same emotional attachment that I did to that franchise,

but when that game got announced. And that's true. Does anybody? Did you cry? The conference opened up with that. I got a little misty eye. Did you well up a little bit? No, it's the music is what always gets me like that playing.

And it's always like a different orchestration of the main theme of the Final Fantasy main theme. And that's what played in the background of this one. Something cool that Kirk, I know, well, actually, both of you appreciate it is that the composer for this game is very clearly this guy named Soken, who is a composer for Final Fantasy 14, which has incredible, that's the MMO and it has incredible music. And actually, this is being made. by the Final Fantasy 14 development staff.

And so one of the producers on this game is Nyoki Yoshida, who is generally seen as the guy who revived Final Fantasy 14 and transformed it from a launch disaster that they had to take down into this incredible game that people still love today. In fact, that announcement got me so excited that I went and downloaded Final Fantasy 14 again and started jumping back in, and I've been playing it. People say that Shadowbringer is the most recent expansion pack

to that game has one of the best stories. of the entire. Yeah, have you not played it yet? No, I'm getting there. Enjoy it. Um, um, there has been a new Final Fantasy announcement since 2013. That was when 15 was announced. The fact that they made 16 of these things, man, everything about it is mind-boggling to me. What did you guys think? Did you enjoy the trailer of Final Fantasy 16? Yeah. Right. It was fun. Yeah, it was like great Final Fantasy stuff. I mean, yes and no. It's a medieval setting. It's kind of like Final Fantasy meets Game of Thrones is the Pop Culture buzzwords that were all over Twitter during this announcement.

Yes. It's very much inspired by 12, I think. It feels very gritty, Game of Thronesy, totally right. One of the things that really stood out to me about seeing this trailer is clearly like in-game footage as opposed to pre-rendered stuff. But also it's not trying to be the ultimate production values, like highest graph of graphical fidelity.

Like it looks like a normal-ass game. And I think that's actually really cool because one of Squyrienics' problems and one of Final Fantasy problems over the years has been just like aiming for the highest end graphics and and kind of sacrificing a lot along the way, including your team's health and like the number of the amount of time it takes to make these games just for the sake of graphical quality. And so it's cool to see this game having like more realistic looking targets, I think. Yeah. So that was really cool. I would agree with that.

I'm really not a final fantasy person, but I will say that after enjoying FF7 remake so much this past year, I feel like I could become a Final Fantasy person, and I'm willing to give this game a try. I don't know. I'm not as excited as Jason is because I don't think it's possible to be, but I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that I was very, very into a Final Fantasy game this past year that I did not expect to be into at all. It's different team, obviously, but still, I feel like that's worth noting, at least for my own brain. Like, maybe I'll like this one too. I don't know. Yeah, I feel that. I mean, I'm like not a Final Fantasy person, despite having played and enjoyed a lot of different Final Fantasy games,

but I would say that I'm a Final Fantasy 7 person and that playing the remake made me realize that. That's the only world where I'm like, I know all these characters and have made so many jokes and know the music inside out and have this kind of relationship with it, even though I like Final Fantasy tactics probably better than any other Final Fantasy game, but 7 was the one.

But yeah, playing that, I'm with you, Maddie, playing that game and then talking about it with the two of you and just having the experience of that game has made me be like, yeah, man, Final Fantasy 16, shit, I'm definitely going to play it. Talk about it on this show. You know we're going to. So one of the things that's really exciting about this announcement is that the Final Fantasy 14 team is such a good track record now of like writing these incredible. So I've only gotten to Heaven's Word, which is the first expansion in the game. So I've already seen a huge chunk.

That's like 80, 100 hours in with like the whole main story campaign, which I beat a couple years ago. And so I've already gotten to see the writing in this game is incredible. The character development and there's a lot to like really sink your teeth into. And so I'm very excited to see this team take that talent to like a mainline Final Fantasy game and just like I have faith that they'll create this world

and characters that like maybe we won't remember as fondly as Final Fantasy 7 because that was a pretty special game. But like maybe it'll be up there with some of the other greats. I'm very optimistic about this game. Also one little tidbit is that I've heard from people who know the game, who have worked on the game, or are familiar with the game's development,

that it's actually been in development for at least four years in some capacity. So it's coming sooner than people... It looks like a whole video game. In the trailer, I was impressed. I went in expecting it to be like the Final Fantasy theme and like a chokobot claw and then like coming soon or whatever. And instead I was like, oh, shit, like this is the whole, it feels like the whole story is done. Like it was all these different parts of the story and characters and like, you know, like you said,

gameplay. I was like, oh, okay, cool. This is a video game that's going to actually come out probably pretty soon. Yeah, it feels very real. Yeah, it looks real. It doesn't look unreasonable. And I think 15 really set a terrible precedent with like, it was announced as versus 13 in like 2008 or something like that, 2006. And then took 10 years to make. And so that, I think they want to shy away from that. And I think it makes sense. I mean, 15 came out in 2016. So it's already been four years since the last Final Fantasy game. Yeah. And like not, and like drawing a line between development and marketing is always a little shaky, but the marketing of 15 was a mess. And to me, 15 was kind of a mess.

Like you can like it as a mess or like it less as a mess, but it was like a mess of a game. Where this, it just feels like it came out really clean. They're like, here's what it is. It seems really confident. And that makes me optimistic that the game will probably hopefully at least also be that way. Yes. So I am extremely excited. Other highlights of the presentation, God of War II, is in there as a teaser.

There's nothing to even talk about. Yeah, classic chocobo claw situation there. Yeah, exactly. It's a real chocobo. That's true. Well, we got to see, at least we got to see Cratos murdering a chocobo by ripping its feathers out of its... If only, man.

Punching its eyeballs out. And it's just a cut to black really fast. Really weird trailer. I was not expecting that. We didn't get to see any more of Horizon 2, but we did get to see more of demon souls, which it turns out. So Sony did this weird thing where they, like, trickled out information afterwards.

They actually put false information on some of the trailers. Like Demon Souls they said was coming to PC and like other platforms and that is not true. And they said it was a PlayStation exclusive but didn't necessarily say PlayStation 5 in the trailer. So we were having to update our news posts after the fact based on PR emails being like, oh, so. Like putting the wrong, putting the wrong bumper tag at the end. Yeah. Which is not a good mistake. Great thing to do.

No, terrible. How do you do that? It's very clearly like we put this together very quickly. So we also found out after the show that Spider-Man Miles Morales is coming to PS4, as I've been saying for like two months on this show. Like, hey, that game is definitely going to PS4. As we've all been saying, I mean, that's been clear from the monster. But it's still a relief. You know, it'll be nice that more people can play that game.

And Horizon Forbidden West is also coming to PS4. Yeah, that was actually surprising to me. Yeah. That's surprising to. I did not know that. And we found out the PS5's launch lineup, which is Miles Morales. there's that sackboy platformer thing and then Demon Souls that's like the big selling point for this fall and then here is the big bombshell Sony essentially told us without saying so that their baseline for games is going to be $70 this next console generation

so the way they're doing it is Miles Morales itself remember this is like a lost legacy style like smaller games so that's only $50 but then you package that with the Spider-Man and PS4 remastered on PS5 and the whole package is $70. Some people said, no, that's just the case for this thing, but no, because Demon Souls is also selling for $70. Destruction All-Stars, which is one of the other launch games, also selling for $70.

So it's very clear that this is the new baseline, outside of this Falls games, which I think, some of which, because we're in this weird cross-gen period, like Ubisoft has said, all of their games will be $60 on NextGen. I think starting next year, we will officially see the move across all publishers, all

games from $60 to $70. Man, how do you guys feel about that? Is it like about time? Is it scary? What do you guys think? I mean, I think it's, it was going to happen no matter what. But I have definitely been feeling some type of way about how expensive gaming is as a hobby.

And they also announced the price of the PS5. Yeah, which actually isn't bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. I mean, $500, it might be kind of painful for her. you or it might not be, it depends on. Well, well, I'm saying the discless one, $400, all you lose is the disc drive, you get the same thing and that's the same price as a PS3 from seven years ago. That's pretty good. Inflation considered. It's not bad, but I've definitely been thinking about it,

just especially in light of the news. It's impossible for me to not factor that in because of the world in which we live. We're looking at mass unemployment and a global recession that is probably unavoidable based on how the United States has approached this crisis. And I'm just like, man, these games sound expensive and a whole lot of people aren't going to be able to buy them. And the people who can buy them are going to easily be able to afford them because upper middle class people are doing fine right now and other people aren't. So that's kind of a dark answer to your question. But that was really truly what I thought about it when I saw the answer of how much the console costs and the fact that games are going to be 70 bucks is that I'm like if wages had risen alongside this, then we would all feel like this was completely fine. but they haven't and that's a problem.

So I thought about this as well and completely agree that just gaming is very expensive. A thought that I had that's related is that that's the new game thing. Like if you're going to be the person who plays all the new games, but there is now this subscription thing that's catching on where now Sony is doing this and then Game Pass. Well, now, I mean, we'll get to the Bethesda News,

but game pass is about to become a hell of a lot more appealing. And so the big Xbox thing, to your point, is Xbox gives you for $35 a month, you can get an Xbox Series X and Game Pass, and it's like a financing plan. So if you want the affordable, if you don't have a lot of money and you want the affordable plan,

that's the way to go. Assuming you can make your monthly payments because I think the credit cards they're partnering with are very much counting on people to not be able to and then you get into serious trouble. I know, which is predatory and crappy,

but as long as you're able to make the payments, it's a better deal. If you're able to make them, it's a really good deal. But yeah, Kirk, finish it you were saying. So, yeah, anyways, that's basically it is that there is also this world where this very expensive thing becomes more affordable in the way that a lot of things become, like, quote unquote, more affordable and that, like, we're given a line of credit and, like, we pay it off over time. But also old games, even slightly old games that are great that most people probably haven't had time to play are almost, like, they're worth like five or $10 each. They're worth almost nothing.

The same way that on PC, you can get things for so cheap. Now if you just have PlayStation Plus or GamePass You just have so many games to play That it almost makes me think that there will be a new Maybe it's already the way that a lot of people play games I guess it kind of is Given how many people tell me they play GamePass games and just get whatever is on GamePass

Where you get all your games that way And then like once or twice a year You're like, okay And now there's the big new thing Which I guess will probably just be Sony games Or Nintendo games I guess Where you'll pay full price for those games but most of the games that people play will be via some sort of service.

That's kind of a better future, but... Which is a good segue into our next big topic, because this week, possibly the biggest gaming story of the year, or one of the biggest gaming stories of the year, is that Microsoft on Monday announced that it was spending $7.5 billion. That's almost twice as much as Disney paid for Lucasfilm, by the way, to buy Xenemex, the owner of Bethesda,

which is the makers of Fallout, and the Elder Scrolls and also has a bunch of other subsidiaries like Id, makers of Doom, machine games, makers of Wolfenstein, and a couple of others. Arcane, of course, dishonored one of the shows,

shows favorites, and prey, another show favorite. So this is a humongous deal. So to answer a couple of likely questions, so Microsoft has said that they're going to honor the commitment Bethesda made to Sony, the contract,

Bethes signed with Sony, to put their next two games, Deathloop and Ghostwire, Tokyo, as PS5 console exclusives, which leads to the hilarious situation that Microsoft is releasing two PS5 console exclusives. Literally, Microsoft published games are being paid money to deprive themselves from Xbox. It's hilarious. So what I want to know is, is it going to say Microsoft when you load up DefLoof? Yeah, no, it's definitely well. It'll say Microsoft Games Studios.

Yeah, because they're part of Microsoft Games Studios. And then, it's so funny. And then the other big question people have, which doesn't have a concrete answer yet, is what about future Bethesda games? Are they going to be not on PlayStation? And so what Phil Spencer told my colleague at Bloomberg, Dina Bass, is that they're going to put games on PC and Xbox, including Xbox Game Pass day one, just like all their other published games. And then other consoles will be decided on a case-by-case basis, whatever that means. I think it's pretty safe to say that they're not unless like they enhance their relationship with Sony or Sony gives them something in return like let them put Xbox GamePass on PlayStation.

They're not going to put the next fallout or Elder Skulls on PS5. I think it would be a fascinating like horse trade to be like, listen, Sony, if you let us put Xbox game pass on here, then we'll do it. But that's a Game of Thronesy conversation for another day. That's a wild Jason prediction for 2022. that's a good one. Well, I'll predict it next year and then it will happen the following year.

When Starfield comes out. So, yeah, what do you, what do you two think? Kirk, what's your take on this major consolidation within the video game industry? Yeah, I mean, I'm generally nervous about consolidation only because everything is always consolidating and huge corporations buy everything. I am really curious how developers

at some of these, especially at like, you know, smaller studios at like machine games or arcane, people who have had the creative freedom to make really cool stuff under Bethesda. And I'm sure it just takes me back to when we would get purchased back when we were working at Kotaku. Yes. I was thinking about that too. I'm sure. I feel like we'll all feel that way forever. So, okay. So I have a little bit of insight on to that, actually. Two things.

One is that I think some, if not a lot of them, have benefited financially. I know there were raises and bumps and bonuses being promised. And also I knew. who owned Xenamax shares is going to make out in a good way, make out like a bandit here. But the second thing, and maybe this is a point you hadn't considered, but if you look back at Bethes's past few years, one of the reasons they wanted to sell so badly is because they have not been doing too hot since like the release of Fallout 4. Prey, a lot of arcane's games have been kind of flops or semi-flops, prey Desaunner 2. Fallout 76 was obviously debacle.

Something to consider, yeah. Yeah, well, something to consider is that any other company, might not want the kind of like mid-sized, like not super mega-hit immersive sim games that like a company like Arcane makes. Whereas Microsoft loves that ship because it just goes on Xbox GamePass and helps fill up the catalog. And so all the studios they've been buying so far are like in that in-between area of like the the double A quote unquote of like games that might cost 10 million to make and might sell like a million copies instead of 10 million copies. And Arcane fits really nicely in there. And maybe some of Bethesda's other stuff does too. So actually creatively, maybe

it'll help them, even though I'm with you, I'm like being nervous about consolidation. I don't necessarily think it would be a bad thing for the developers themselves. No, sure, for sure. And I think it's more, I think it's as much my stuff as any actual prediction about what's happening. It's just seeing a group of people who were working under one paradigm get purchased and just adjust to the fact that they're going to be working under another paradigm. and the fact that at every point, at least in my experience, that that's happened to me, it's always been a lie. There's always some amount of bullshitting.

And it's not always, it's the end of the world. It's not like, you know, it's not always as bad as it went with Kataku in the end, even though I wasn't even really there for that final transition. But you got to hear about it. I did. And it's not always the worst case scenario of like, and now we're just going to be pillaged for parts and everything is going to fall apart. Like a lot of times it's just like, we're so excited about this new partnership and

and things are staying exactly as they were. And, you know, then behind the scenes. And how long does that last? That's always the promise, right? It's like, we're going to let you stay independent and keep doing the creative projects that you already do so well. And we're just going to bankroll them and we won't get involved. And then like six months goes by, a year goes by.

They're looking at your bottom lines. And they're like, what if you made this into a service game? Like, just an idea. Hey, we just have a few notes. And it turns out if you don't implement our notes, we are taking away everything from you. Right. But we don't know if that's going to happen. 100%.

Especially with a company like Microsoft that just has a history of like big transitions and overhauls and changes over the past like decades where like one year they'll be doing one thing. Even you look at Xbox. Look at the Xbox one launch and like how quickly they pivoted from like that approach to something else and then something else entirely with Xbox GamePass. I mean, I think some of those decisions have been pretty smart. But I do agree with Kirk about just the overall feeling of Microsoft acquiring something. because it, I know they've been eyeing this for a while. There have been rumors for a while about Microsoft making acquisitions. They've already made some acquisitions.

We've talked about the double-fine one on the show in the past. And so this isn't unexpected in that way, but it is still, it makes me wonder if this conversation would have been really different if the pandemic hadn't happened this year and if Bethesda would feel differently about its security and finances if we were in a different version of 2020. And we'll never know the answer to that. But I do think that that, that's, was probably something that played a role was like the future is extremely unknowable right now

across all industries. Microsoft has money falling out of its ears and every other orifice, if Microsoft had orifices. And they are extremely stable and safe feeling. And like getting acquired by them probably felt like a pretty good proposition in 2020. And that, I don't know, that's my theory is that that played a role as well. That makes sense, especially when I think about what Bethesda had on the horizon. Yeah. Where like whatever, like the games they were working on Elder Scrolls and is it Starfield, is that what it's called?

Yeah. Which those could be very far away. Yeah, they're so far away. And there's this question of like, what is Bethes actually doing for money? Like, you know, I'm sure they're making money on some things. But like Death Loop looks like it's going to be really cool. And I think the three of us will probably dig it. But it does seem like one of those games that some people will like, but it'll be kind of

niche. And then it won't make enough money. And so, yeah, it does seem like a safe. move for them. Well, so Bethesda does have, well, so if you look at this from Microsoft's perspective, this is like a game changer for Xbox GamePass. And I think it's entirely for Xbox GamePast. Like there's been a lot of takes. There's been a lot of takes about like, oh, this is their next, like, this is their way of beating the PS5. I can promise you that like Microsoft does not give a shit about beating the PS5. Like maybe some of their marketing people like

When you say beating, you mean selling more Xbox Series X than selling more consoles. Yeah. If they wanted to do that, they would make exclusive games for the Xbox instead of putting all their games on PC and Xbox and whatever else, like GamePass, whatever. This is not, their strategy is very much like we want everyone in the world subscribe to Xbox GamePass and paying us $10 a month

for the privilege because that makes them infinity revenue. That doesn't make them like they cannot give a shit about the fanboys on Twitter being like, oh, Xbox's going to beat the PlayStation now. That is not Microsoft strategy. But from their perspective on GamePass, not only do they now

get every single Bethesda game as a new, like, day one launch game pass, which is such an appealing proposition from, from a customer, because it's like, why would I spend $70 on death loop when I could get it for $10 a month, like, among other, hundreds of other games? But also, Microsoft gets access to this super lucrative back catalog of games, and a couple of them have been on Game Pass. I believe Marowin was on there and like Fallout 3 at some point or fallout 4 at some point are both. But now they can put everything. Like all of Bethesda's old stuff can suddenly go on game pass and that is super, super appealing as a proposition. And really cool for people who have game pass. That's a great. I mean, when it's Saturday

and you're sitting there being like, I want to play something different and you're looking like, you know, I never played Dishonored 2. That's a great example. I kind of did that, you know, what a year ago, I guess. And it was great. I was like, whoa, this game is amazing. And I just like didn't find time for it when it came out. I have a question that's just, I'm thinking back to other Microsoft acquisitions. And I'm wondering what the two of you think of this. When Microsoft bought Mo Yang and now owns Minecraft, they did not make Minecraft into an exclusive for Xbox. Do you think that that is some sort of a precedent here and that that could inform the chances of them making all these Bethesda games into Xbox exclusives?

Jason, you're shaking your head. I feel like the genie was already out of the bottle on Minecraft and you couldn't put it back in at that point. It was already such a cross-platform sensation that buying Minecraft and making it exclusive would have pissed off so many people that it wasn't a worthy proposition to consider. Yeah, that makes sense. So, okay, so that is true. But on second thought, I just had kind of like an interesting change of heart. Mo Yang did release a game recently, Minecraft Dungeons, which is actually pretty good.

I played a bunch of it on the PC. They actually put that on Switch and PS4. And so that is an interesting, like if you're looking at Microsoft's overall strategy, that is an interesting precedent. Obviously, Microsoft has flirted with Nintendo a lot. They put Cuphead on the Switch. They actually just announced last week that they were putting Ori2 on the switch and Nintendo Direct, the one that had Hades, which we will get to later on today.

So there is precedent for Microsoft being like, okay, we're going to keep it. So from that perspective, you could say, well, Microsoft has said they're going to keep autonomous as a publisher, semi-autonomous as a publisher. So maybe if Bethesda wants to still put Fallout 5 or Elder Scroll 6 or Starfield on PS5 maybe they still can but I don't know it's it's a tough one it's a chicken one it is a tough one and I don't know where it'll go I they might not know yet by the way they might not have decided it's it's totally just I'm sure they don't and like when I look to the future I it's just imagining a world where fallout five isn't on PlayStation I don't know

like it's one thing no but it's one yeah because it's like Xbox 360 like exclusives are timed exclusives. Yeah. We're just not in that world anymore, though. And while it's true of a lot of Sony exclusives, like those are, you know, like uncharted is just like a, that's always been on PlayStation. It's just, it just feels crazy. And it might be that just, that's the new world.

Like, we're in a world that isn't like the world you just mentioned where, you know, oblivion came out on 360. We're in a different one. It could be, we will be in a different one yet again. It's just, that's wild. That'll be wild if that's the case. Yeah. Although it's, yeah, it's a good, like, how much does it actually hurt Sony?

Like, Elder Scrolls 6 is going to sell 20 million copies, right? But Sony is still going to be raking in money with, like, people buying all their games for 70 bucks. So the new uncharted, the next Uncharted, the next Last of Us, the next God of War, like all the shit that they have and they're stable, plus all the other third party stuff. It goes back to the premise on the console war, which is that all three of these, the Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all fighting different wars. Like, they all have different objectives. so it's not zero sum with any of them. And they can actually all win. I don't know if Sony's tactic is actually going to work,

but I've said it before. I really feel like Microsoft's makes a lot of sense. And this is just another piece in that puzzle where I'm like, great, you aren't focusing on hardware anymore. You don't have to worry about hardware shortages as much. You can just really pummel that game pass thing home. It just seems like it's going to come in handy for them. Whereas Sony, I'm like, yeah,

I guess you're counting on the people who can afford $70 games and exclusives and like a really specific hardcore gamer niche that is at least in my eyes slowly fading away and becoming more of a world where people subscribe to a lot of services and they play some games. It's funny you say that because I felt like I had the opposite perspective. Like anecdotally, I was just hearing from people who are like looking to pre-order PS5s who would have never pre-ordered last generation. Well, it feels like.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like the PS5 is the one that you need the hardware. but Xbox is the one where you need game paths. Yeah, but I'm saying that that niche of hardcore gamers, I think, has actually gotten way bigger. Like, I don't think it's a niche. And I think that my theory that I've been kind of ruminating on for a while is that the gaming audience, and especially the gaming audience for hardcore games, quote unquote, let's just say that to distinguish them from. Yeah, which is fake, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah. Just for lack of a better word, really. Yeah, people who aren't just playing games on their phone, which there's nothing wrong with, but like people who are actually into console games. You know, weirdos. Yeah, weirdos like us. I think that audience has expanded exponentially since the last generation. You can be right.

And I think games have, like, gotten bigger than they ever have before because of things like Fortnite and just explosions of, like, cultural phenomenons. And I think that, like, phenomena. I think for that reason, I think both of these consoles are just going to sell gangbusters. And I think that, like, with different overlapping circles in the Venn diagram. Yeah, it's very possible. I think that PS5 will probably, right. probably outsell the Xbox overall long term because of the exclusive question.

Right, right. People who play on PC have no reason to get an Xbox as opposed to PlayStation. Yeah, and they're doing a hardware model where the hardware really matters, whereas Xbox and Microsoft just isn't doing that. And they're going to make a bunch of money. We won't even know how much money because it's not like they're going to tell us. Well, the thing, they're going to make a bunch of money. Both of these companies are making, like, arm over fist money because, hand over fist money,

because of the stores. I was right the first time. No, no, I think hand over fist is correct. I'm trying to figure it out, because if your hand goes over your fist, that's what the expression is, but why? Anyways, who cares? Let's keep talking about video games. I guess so. Because both of them get a 30% cut out of every digital game sold in their stores, and they're both selling digital consoles.

So, like, anytime anyone buys anything, they're just, like, getting free money. So they'll both be fine. But I really think, I think this generation is going to be even bigger than the last one was. And the last one was pretty big. And I just, especially in the pandemic where everybody's jumping into games, I've never played games before. Like, they're all bored looking for things to do. That's going to continue through next year. Like, we're going to see record sales numbers, I think.

I'm pretty, pretty bullish on the video game industry overall. I think you're right about that. Yep. So, yeah, all that to say, I also am scared of our future where Microsoft and Disney own everything. Everything? Yeah. But look, but if Microsoft wants to spend a couple of billion on this podcast, just hit us up. up you can reach us at triple click at maximum fund.

Jason is interested in talking to you. We are not. Kirk and I are not. You're really looking to sell out. No, I'm just kidding. Microsoft, we will respond with just a gif of a middle finger, no matter how much you offer. We are punk, rock.

We are not selling out to the man. We are listener supported. Heck yeah, we are. Feel free to play this clip in like five years when we sell out to Microsoft. Yeah, that's true. We just own our future selves. Well, if Lindsay Graham can say that and then get away with it later on.

Nothing matters, nothing matters. It's true. All right, why don't we take a break? Then we will get into one more thing. Hey, you like movies? What about coming up with movie ideas over the course of an hour? Because that's what we do every week on Story Break, a writer's room podcast where three Hollywood professionals have an hour to come up with a pitch

for a movie or TV show based off of totally zany prompts. Like that time, we reimagine Star Wars based on our phones auto-complete. Luke Skywalker is a family. man and it's Star Wars but it's a good idea. How about that time we broke the story of a bunch of Disney Channel original movies based solely on the title and the poster? Okay, Sarah Highland is a 50-foot woman. Let's just go with it, guys. Or the time we finally cracked the Adobe Photoshop feature film.

Stamp tool is your Woody and then the auto film is the new Buzz Lighty. Join this as we have a good time of matching. All the movies Hollywood is too cowardly to make. Story break comes out every Thursday on maximum fun. I don't know why I'm using this voice now. Readers have a lot of problems. How do you juggle your holds at the library? Well, how do you decide what to read next?

What do you do when you find out an author you love is a huge trash baby? I'm Brea Grant, and I'm Mallory O'Mara. And we're the hosts of reading glasses. We're here to solve all your reader problems, and along the way, help you figure out your reader wheelhouse, which are the things that will absolutely make you pick up a book. Our listener favorites tend to be magic and a woman on a journey. And also birds, for some reason?

Your reader Doghouse. Yeah, that's the things that'll make you avoid a book. Love triangles, stress me out so much. Reading glasses. Every Thursday on maximum fun.org. And we are back. Kirk Maddie, it is time once again for one more thing. Sure is.

I'm going to go first this week because I know that at least Kirk and I are champing in the bit to talk about this one. My one more thing is Hades, a game that came to Switch last week and also came out of early access, so it's like an official 1.0 release. I have been holding off on this game for a Switch release. since we first found out about it. And people have been raving about this game for a long time, and I jumped in, have played it constantly over the weekend,

understand exactly why people have been raving about it so much. This game is fantastic. So a little bit of context. This is the newest game from Super Giant, who are this all-star studio that has released four games, and all four of them are bangers. They're responsible for Bastion, Transistor, and Pire. Three excellent games.

Although I never really got into Transistor. But regardless, three critics. is an excellent game. You know, I should, I should give it another chance on Switch. It's really great. It's awesome. I think I'd love it. But Hades, I like better than all of them so far.

And I really like Fasten Empire. Hades is a game. You play as the son of Hades trying to escape the underworld. It is a rogue-like. So every time you go into the underworld, it's a different, it's like procedurally generated world, so it's different levels. At each level, you get to kind of pick which reward you're going to get next. and that is where the strategy comes into play

because you can build out your character based on the rewards you're getting. So like at the end of each level you see two orbs orbs and you can pick which one you want. Do I want to go and get a key that'll help me unlock my abilities later or do I want to go get some coins that'll help me now?

And a lot of the strategy is thinking like long-term rewards and stuff that carries on with your character over time versus short-term rewards and stuff that carries on with your character just for this run that you're doing. There's something really appealing about it.

Everything about it is great. The atmosphere is great. The way it feels to play is great. The actions, the weapons are great. There's like a wide variety of weapons and they all feel different and awesome. The writing and dialogue is like top notch, the voice acting, the music. Everything about this is just perfect. The art.

Did you talk about that yet? The art is amazing. Great looking game. The level of horniness is through the roof. Yeah, you may have noticed people all over social media talking about their Hades crushes. There's a lot of people you can crush on in the game. I saw a fantastic.

a gift of a woman's streamer playing it and she's just playing and then she gets to like the character the Ari's character and she just goes like oh and like she has this face of pure pure delight and horniness it's hilarious so anyway so the thing that i was going to say the thing that i think is really appealing to people and to me in particular about it is that it never feels like your run through the game is a waste like you never feel like you're wasting time usually a rogue like does that accomplishes that because usually the definition of a roguelike is that essentially you lose everything and it's like you have to keep trying and trying and trying you lose everything when you die in a run and they call it run because that's the new tries right um so usually in a roguelike the sense of

accomplishment is that you have kind of honed your skills and you're going to be better at it the next time but in this the game is so good at giving you those long-term rewards and like unlocking new things and giving you new dialogue every time you finish a run and get back to like the main chamber of where haides Hades is and like all the other NPCs are who can talk to you. It's just excellent in making you want to keep playing and playing. You never feel like you're wasting your time. And that to me is what makes it such a great game. One of my favorites of the year so far in a year that has been otherwise kind of mediocre for me. I love it to death. Kirk, I know you're also playing it. So I want to hear your kind of overall thoughts as well. Yeah, this game rips. It's super, super good. I've played a little bit

of Hades in early access when it kind of first came out and was like, oh, this is good. And then didn't really get super into it, partly because it was in early access. And I just, I think I was playing other things. This is out, now it's out on Switch, which is what I've been playing it on, and it's really great on Switch just because, you know, performance isn't quite as smooth as on PC, but it's just playing it as on a handheld. And they're going to add cross-save at some point in the future, which is also really cool because I do have this game on PC.

So playing it, like, you know, on a PC with like total smoothness would be pretty cool, too. Although it's pretty smooth on Switch, worth saying. No, there are noticeable frame rate dips. Anytime the screen gets busy. Oh, yeah, heck yeah. It dips way below 60. Like, whenever there's a bunch of stuff happening. But it doesn't really detract. Like, I don't mind, but playing it on

PC, it's like noticeably smoother. Might be your mileage, maybe, very kind of thing. So, Super Giant Games to me is just this, man, there are just so few studios like this. They're very small and they're so singular because each

role in the studio feels so distinct. I know, so Gen Z is that art lead at Super Giant, she's responsible for how all these games look, and these games have looked like a billion dollars from the very beginning. Like, Bastion looks amazing, and they all have her style. Like, they all look similar. The characters are gorgeous and like, yeah, like horny, but in this really cool way, like, every character just like looks fascinating and the art on all of them is so cool. The environment art is like incredible. All the environments are so intricate and like colorful and just beautiful, so it's amazing looking. It's amazing sounding. Darren Corb, the composer of this game, rules. And like, he's ruled from the beginning. I mean, that was

like what made Bastion great. But also, the voice cast is great. And Logan Cunningham, who is this voice actor who's been working with them from the beginning, is great. Though I didn't know this until yesterday. Do you know who plays Zagrius, the main character? It's freaking Darren Corb. I found that audio. The audio director. So I was, that blows me way. Because you He's great. He's like really good. He also plays Skelly, the training skeleton. He plays two characters in it. So that guy is like a triple threat. But the music kills in this game. And like a big part of it for me, I totally agree that when I'm playing, like the fact that you're always getting the like purple goo that you use to level yourself up long term and the keys to get

you new weapons. And like there's always a feeling that you're sort of making your way through it. There's two other things that. One is that I just like love playing it. And every new encounter is like a treat just because it's so well designed. And transistor in particular, I think, is like an incredibly well-designed game. And you can just tell they've been playing with a lot of these design ideas for so long. And actually, Hades is their safest game, I would say. Like, from a design standpoint, it's the safest. Like every other game was weird in some way. The transistor is like a kind of a more tactical game in some ways. There's like a grid that you're moving along. It doesn't, it's not as much of a just straight-up Diablo-feeling game,

the way that Hades is. And Pire is like really experimental to the point where I think a lot of people kind of bounced off that game. It's like a basketball RPG. So those are like, but there are still these mechanical ideas they play with like transistor. You'll really like that game, Jason. There's all this stuff with like your build in that game where if you take damage, your weapons get damage to. So you have to like switch your load out in the middle of a fight and get by without that move that you were surviving on the whole time. And you realize how well balanced the combat system is, which is also true in Hades.

where like whatever weapon you're using, whatever you're fighting, it's going to be like a like total knockdown, dragout fight that's going to be really exciting every time. So it's so well designed. And there's so much writing. Like it's nuts how much writing there is in this games. And that's great because seven, the lead writer and the writer of all these games. I can't believe how much writing there is.

Every time you go back to Hades, there's new dialogue. Every time you go somewhere new, there's something new. Even encounters like the boss fight against the Fury, Meg, like it starts changing. eventually and like things just keep changing and there's this feeling of like no run is the same in this game not just because it's procedurally generated but because they've written a gillion lines of dialogue and they have a whole story that unfolds that's built around the idea of a repeating dungeon where you're always getting new dog i think i've never heard a line of dialogue repeat and i've probably played like 12 hours of the game or something like it's totally nuts so yeah it's an

amazing game i'm like over the moon about i can't wait to play it more and we haven't even gotten into the tactics part of it, which is that, like, you can really, like, min-max the character builds. Oh, there's so much strategy, yeah. So every time you play through the game, every time you do a run, you'll meet the various gods of Olympus, like Ari's and Zeus and Poseidon and so on and so on, and they'll all give you different powers based on who you find when, and a lot of people, you can, like, max out your builds based on selecting a certain weapon, which pairs well with, like, this particular boon that you get from the god, and you get to choose between a bunch of boons,

it's just very like cerebral and but not too cerebral it's it just got that perfect balance of everything I like that there's an element of randomness there even though you can get the trinkets from them that then if you equip them your next boon will be from that god which like Athena has like really good defensive boons so I've been using her because I'm like you know it's good if you're kind of starting out it's useful her deflection skill so like you can kind of be like all right I'm going to like nudge the like RNG generator this way you know or the RNG this way but you're not able to like build a very specific build. You kind of don't know what you're going to get.

Or chaos is a great example where like chaos shows up and there are really weird, you know, buffs that also come with debuffs and they don't happen all the time. So there's so much, there's never, you can't just plan everything out. So you have to be kind of loose. And they've always done a good job at that. That's why I think transistor is such a well-designed game because you have to stay flexible in that game. And I really like when games creatively push you outside of just like, okay, yes, you can just

like use that one attack on that one weapon over and over again on most enemies, this game is very good at pushing you outside of that, which I think is really cool. Yes, yes, yes, everybody go play a Hades. It's so good, man, it's so good. Maddie, what's your one more thing? Okay, so I watched the second season of Penn 15. You guys remember, we talked about this first season of this show, a while back. Oh, yes, and I watched the first season and loved it. It rules. The second season also rules, but I just want to recommend to the listener what this show even is. So it's two adult women comedians who are playing themselves in middle school and all of the other actors on the show are played by middle school aged kids, except they have to act like these two adult women are also

middle school aged. But, I mean, that's a hilarious enough premise on its own. But I feel like what really makes this show work so well for me is that it's very rare for me to see a show that's about women that engages in like gross out humor and embarrassing stuff that happens to teenage girls. I feel like that's just a topic that hasn't really been touched that much in media because usually it's men who are making media and they don't really know how to write those experiences. But this show is based on actual real life experiences of these women. And it's so like, it's amazing. I watching season two, my girlfriend and I were just, screaming at the television and how embarrassing 90% of it is because it's unbearable to watch,

but it's also the greatest. And the show is almost surreal in its humor. Like, sometimes just weird shit is unfolding. And you're like, I don't, I don't even know what I'm looking at. But it's amazing. And I hope people will check it out because I'm really glad it exists. Where can people watch it? It's on Hulu. I love season one of this show. And so weird. So weird. Yeah, it's funny because this show, I would have said this show is one of the first to really mine, I mean, it is one of the first, but I would have said it's the first to really mine middle school as a specific era of hell that we all live through. But actually, Big Mouth is another show that is very similar in a lot of ways. And, you know, it's not, it does handle, like, girls and boys and, like,

both of the things that they go through. They have a similar energy. Yeah, very similar energy, actually. Like there are even some, I remember there's like a subplot in season one that kind of matches up, but they're still very different because of the whole adult framing, which sort of neutralizes some, it like both enhances the energy this show, but also neutralizes other aspects of it. And it just makes everything a little weird so the horrible, awkward situations feel a little more bearable in some ways because it's adults who are suffering. That's the cartoon aspect of Big Mouth stuff. True, yeah, very similar. Yes, yes. The heightened aspect. Like if you were watching actual little kids do the stuff in big mouth, that would not be plus.

No, that's true. There's just something about watching adults be as embarrassing and strange as middle schoolers are, especially if you're like, well, this is really based on something that really happened. And it's like a unique sensation to watch that. And I think everyone should at least watch the pilot for the show. It's so weird and good. It's great.

Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a little 2007 video game that you both might have heard of called Super Mario Galaxy. and I've been playing for the first time over the past few days. That's a cool game. Yeah, it is. Holy shit.

It's amazing. I knew it was good, but I don't think I knew how wild it is. So I'm like through the first galaxy, I'm up to the next one, but it's already clear. This game, the developers of this game also worked on what?

3D world, 3D land, and Odyssey. So these are kind of the modern stewards of 3D Mario. And I remember playing 3D land on the 3DS and not having played Galaxy and having people be like, oh, this is going to be amazing because these people are amazing.

And that game is amazing. And it's the same fewing that Galaxy has, that Odyssey has, and that 3D world, I didn't love that one as much, has of like constant new ideas. You might like it more when it's not on the Wii U because the Wii U is kind of,

I think when it comes to Switch, it'll be given another shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that seems like it's not a bad game. I just like it didn't, whatever, I didn't play a lot of it. But, um, it, so that sense of like new ideas always coming at you is like really amazing in all of those games where you're just like, holy shit, like, how have I been playing this for this long?

And there's still like every level is something new. But galaxy's fundamental idea, this, the way of, that it uses 3D space, the way that you're like walking around these little planets, that it uses gravity as a mechanic. Like there, it's, it's just totally. mind-blowing. I'm like having vertigo half the time I'm playing this game because the first time that you realize playing this, even having played all those other games, and I loved Odyssey, it's a great game. But when you walk up to the edge of a world in this game and you walk over it and the gravity holds you down and the camera flips over the side of the planet, there's nothing else like that.

Like I've never seen something like that in a Mario game. And it blew my mind. Like the first time I did it. I guess I've seen people play this game, but it's just different when you're playing it yourself. and you realize, holy shit, this whole game's going to be like this. And now I'm doing the thing where you're like bouncing from those gravity stars. And like you flip from one planet down to another planet that's right near it. And your gravity, like you switch to a different gravity center. And it's just, yep, that's how the game works. And now you're walking around on this one.

And it's so, it manages to be intuitive despite introducing these totally nuts ideas that I still don't really see in very many games. So it's really amazing. I mean, it's just an amazing game. I played a little bit with Emily also in like, Co-op mode. That was what I was going to ask you, because I remember liking the co-op mode in that game. It's really good. I like it better than co-op and Odyssey because she can really just sort of chill. And the game has got so much going on that if it were more involved and we really needed to work together, it would be too much.

But with her just like shooting stuff and, you know, grabbing stars, then we're both just kind of marveling at whatever bananas thing is happening on screen at any given moment. it's so cool it's such a yeah such a trippy game when it came out in 2007 um I think it was 2007 yeah it was 2007 I was in college

um this game happens to be extremely good with paired with weed and I can imagine college in college if you happen to imbibe a little bit and enjoy this game just just throwing that out there

yeah I can no I can totally imagine it well and that that kind of that lets me segue to whatever thing I was going to say which is that aesthetically, I think this game is on a different aesthetic level for me than any Mario game I've played. Like, I don't love the Mario aesthetic in general. Like, it's not a game I think of for its aesthetics. It's pleasing, but it basically everyone just looks like a, like, inflatable balloon kind of, and everything is really colorful, but just sort of like clown town.

This game is really beautiful at times. Wait until you get the clown galaxy. There's these pastel storyboards, the way they tell the story, and the music is just out of so. I mean, Mario has always had great music, but this music is just amazing. And it's going for this whole, like, kind of... It's really, the orchestration, yeah, the way that it... It feels like there's an orchestra like scoring your movement. Yeah, and the melodies, they're using a lot of, like, Lydian and a lot of these sounds that are just, like, really bright and sort of...

It sounds like a 90s cartoon a little bit, like, the sort of, like, explorer cartoon where you're in outer space and you're going to a new adventure. It's so adventurous. It's so frigging good. I'm really amazed by it. Something worth noting... by the way about the aesthetics is that they are so much better now because now this game is in HD and when it came out in 2007 we did have HD games like 2006 was in the 360 and PS3 where we're like starting to release HD level games and having this Wii game come out that was like

480 like didn't look great on like your big screen TVs at the time and so now you can really appreciate it a lot more now that it's in high definition it does look nice though I think it's really I mean, the music and the art direction, and the art direction would work at any resolution. Like, it's just, it's so amazing looking. I mean, when you launch off of one planet in a galaxy and just go flying in like a spiral around to another one, oh, last thought is that it's got, it's really made me realize how many games draw from this. Like, playing Gravity Ghost, that really cool game. Like, that game is totally, like, using the gravity mechanic.

And then playing Outer Wild, it's a game that I dearly love before playing Galaxy. It's like watching Stranger Things before watching E.T. Like you're like, oh, well, these are both good, and I liked watching both of them. But now I see, like, they've got a lot of ideas from, you know, from the one thing. So anyways, it's a wonderful game. I love it. I'm going to play the hell out of it. Like, I adore playing it.

It's so good. Oh, man. I'm so excited because you, there's so much stuff coming that will, like. I know. I know, because every freaking level is, like, some amazing new thing. So I think that, I'm sure that continues to the end. Well, yeah. And some of the galaxies are just, like, giant puzzles or, like, bonus mini games and stuff like it.

And then it's really unfortunate that Mario Galaxy 2 isn't on there because that game like really takes everything. Yeah, I'll find a way to play it. And like really takes it to the next level. Yeah, it's, it's incredible. But I'm happy with Galaxy 1 for now. It's great and I'm very excited. Okay, cool. So on that note, that is it for this week's episode.

So it is time to say goodbye. Kirk, Maddie. We will see you next week. Yep. See both next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Shry. 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 maximum fun.org and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive Triple Click episode each month. Find us online at tripleclickpodcast.com, on Twitter at Triple ClickPod, and send email to triple click at MaximumFun.org.

Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.