Giant Bombcast 04-26-2011

[0] It's Tuesday, April the 26th, 2011, and you are listening to The Giant Bombcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] Joining me, Vinny Caravella.

[3] I ain't no cheese eater.

[4] What does that even mean?

[5] I don't eat cheese.

[6] Patrick Klepek.

[7] I'm a rat.

[8] I ate the cheese.

[9] And Brad Schumacher.

[10] She stands alone as previously established.

[11] Indeed.

[12] Thank you, Omar Little.

[13] Jeff Gershman out on assignment.

[14] Got his news hat on.

[15] He's got his newsy news hat.

[16] Not really.

[17] He's down in L .A. shooting some bonus rounds with Jeff Keighley.

[18] Michael Pachter hat.

[19] Yeah, it's Pachter.

[20] Anyway, Vinny Caravella.

[21] Yeah, man. How was your Easter weekend, buddy?

[22] It was great.

[23] I almost forgot it was Easter until my mom called.

[24] Yeah.

[25] Happy Easter!

[26] Get on Skype right here!

[27] Look at you!

[28] Your cousin's here!

[29] Everybody's here!

[30] Oh man, it's Easter, isn't it?

[31] Happy Easter!

[32] You guys hiding the eggs?

[33] I did, I hid the egg with Jesse.

[34] Halfway through the Skype hall before you realize what you're actually talking about.

[35] What are we doing?

[36] Why are you eating fish?

[37] Why am I Skyping with frilly white dresses on everyone?

[38] Why are you Skyping in church?

[39] How do you have a Wi -Fi connection in church?

[40] It's like you're here.

[41] Yeah, so it was kind of.

[42] Did you do anything?

[43] No, that's right.

[44] I asked you earlier if you did anything Easter -ish or Passover -ish.

[45] Yeah, wife's Jewish.

[46] And you said that you ate an egg bagel on Saturday.

[47] Yeah, we got them both.

[48] One shot, bam.

[49] Which I thought was really, really funny.

[50] I wanted to repeat that joke for other people to hear it.

[51] It still plays.

[52] I think so.

[53] Yeah.

[54] I'm happy with it.

[55] So, yeah, that was kind of it and talked to my folks about Easter and what it means to us.

[56] And then I played through Mortal Kombat.

[57] Mortal Kombat!

[58] I resurrected.

[59] Brad Shoemaker, you may want to take note here.

[60] Yes.

[61] He's going to spoil the end of Mortal Kombat for you.

[62] Now I won't spoil it.

[63] You really care?

[64] I'm guessing that I could probably figure out how it ends.

[65] I don't know, man. This is what you get for being off the grid for five days.

[66] It was worth it.

[67] I feel like I'm making my way through, I don't know, season two this year of video games.

[68] So I beat Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat.

[69] Didn't beat SOCOM.

[70] Wait, what was the season finale of season one?

[71] I'm trying to, the Dragon Age.

[72] Really?

[73] Yeah, I guess.

[74] I don't know.

[75] What else came out early this year?

[76] It's not a great cliffhanger, is it?

[77] Dead Space.

[78] That was January, though.

[79] Yeah, that was real early.

[80] I feel like this all came out in a big chunk, and now I'm kind of through with it.

[81] We're in quarter two, right?

[82] You're talking about last week's two major releases?

[83] Yeah, I've got to get them behind me and move on.

[84] Last week was so action -packed for all involved.

[85] Brad, even though you were not here for the fucking end of the goddamn world.

[86] Sitting here waiting.

[87] Preview of the no internet apocalypse.

[88] Yeah, yeah.

[89] You didn't even get to see any of the site down for days upon days upon days.

[90] I was in a place with no internet, period.

[91] Yeah.

[92] I don't believe that.

[93] Oh, dude, it was amazing.

[94] There's no, zero internet.

[95] No internet.

[96] No portal tube.

[97] You could actually, you could go to the lobby and get a real bad Wi -Fi connection.

[98] Really?

[99] I didn't even bother.

[100] You were in Mexico.

[101] Mexico.

[102] Nice.

[103] That's good.

[104] What part of Mexico?

[105] Cozumel.

[106] A little island off the Gulf side.

[107] How's the cheese?

[108] Well, judging by Brad's magnificent brown suit, I would say the tease was...

[109] Oh, you saw the suit?

[110] I saw it.

[111] It was ripe.

[112] Linen.

[113] You know, it looked great on Jason.

[114] It was a linen suit.

[115] I thought he wore it really well.

[116] I had to get sized up on that suit.

[117] I ordered a suit, and by the time it came in, they had to order another suit.

[118] I got a lot of gym time ahead of me, especially after that.

[119] Oh, my God.

[120] Have you ever been to an inclusive resort?

[121] No. Yeah.

[122] There were like eight open bars all over the place.

[123] Oh, yeah.

[124] There's like a buffet open 20 hours a day.

[125] Did you have an open bar in the pool?

[126] Yeah.

[127] Every pool had it.

[128] It's like in the center of the pool, right?

[129] Every pool had a bar in the pool.

[130] And you could float over to it and get drink orders.

[131] Wait, and drink in the pool?

[132] Yeah.

[133] I mean, they hand you a drink.

[134] There's a bar in the middle of the pool, so you float over to it.

[135] There are stools underneath the water that you can sit on.

[136] So you're in the pool sitting at the bar.

[137] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[138] And they're serving up to it.

[139] I mean, okay, so why would you leave?

[140] When I was really, really young.

[141] and when I figured out how I could order Fantas, I pretty much never left.

[142] Did anybody dump their drink in the pool?

[143] I hope so.

[144] I don't know.

[145] You do hope so?

[146] It's Mexico.

[147] They're probably keeping that shit highly chlorinated anyway.

[148] Somebody just dies immediately.

[149] I got out unscathed on this trip.

[150] Several people were taken down by Montezuma, but not me. Local bugs.

[151] I think I drank enough to cleanse my innards.

[152] But, yeah, I thought it was a goofy suit on the groomsmen.

[153] I hope he doesn't listen to this.

[154] But Jason wore it well.

[155] Yeah, well, that's good.

[156] No, no, no. He's the only one that matters.

[157] That's the whole point.

[158] As long as the bride and groom are looking.

[159] It's why you should actually have kind of shitty bridesmaids dresses.

[160] Yeah, so you look great.

[161] Yeah, you want the main players to look awesome.

[162] It's a fine -looking couple.

[163] You want as many comments about, fucking who chose out the bridesmaids dresses?

[164] Jesus Christ.

[165] The bridesmaids also actually looked lovely.

[166] Excellent.

[167] Well, I hope you had fun.

[168] We were here flying by the fucking seat of our goddamn pants just trying to make anything up that we possibly could.

[169] Patrick over here was posting links to Google Docs.

[170] Yeah.

[171] He was writing up stories like, I got nowhere to put these.

[172] There's no website to make them.

[173] Highlight of my career, getting other websites to link to my Google Docs, but credit and get two giant bombs.

[174] That is a good way to end my first fucking week.

[175] I feel like everyone pitched in and made last week work in light of their meta media coverage.

[176] Indeed.

[177] How do you provide coverage when you have no website to provide coverage with?

[178] Quick looks of quick looks.

[179] We figured out a way.

[180] That's right.

[181] We were sitting there providing coverage.

[182] You didn't even see any of this shit.

[183] When he walked in this morning, he was like...

[184] I had no idea about any of this.

[185] He had no idea the site was even down.

[186] Zero.

[187] Absolutely not.

[188] It was insane.

[189] We were sitting there doing live streams of quick looks we had recorded the day previous, talking over those quick looks and commenting on what happened as we were recording those quick looks.

[190] I've got to go back and watch that.

[191] It got real bad real quick.

[192] It's funny.

[193] I was looking at the analytics stuff today.

[194] That's just sad when you see the traffic.

[195] Just bottom out.

[196] And you're like, I'm just cruising, cruising, cruising.

[197] And then you dive off a cliff.

[198] It looks like there's a cup sitting in the middle of your traffic graph.

[199] Just like an empty vessel.

[200] Just like, wow.

[201] Really, nobody.

[202] Nobody got on the side.

[203] We had zero hits.

[204] Well, at least there was like an inverse bell going on.

[205] At least it went back up on the other side.

[206] At least it didn't bottom out and stay there.

[207] I haven't really checked.

[208] It's only been up for like 24 hours at this point, right?

[209] A little longer than that.

[210] It went up Saturday night, didn't it?

[211] Was it Saturday?

[212] Oh, it was Saturday.

[213] I think it was Friday.

[214] No. It was Saturday.

[215] It was down all day Friday.

[216] I'm really sad that I missed this.

[217] It was crazy.

[218] Dave did, like, you know, 48 -hour telethon, radio calling.

[219] Props to Dave for the call -ins.

[220] When did that end on Friday night?

[221] He was doing it on Saturday as well.

[222] Only for a little bit on Saturday.

[223] But, yeah, he came back and was like, keep going.

[224] Yeah.

[225] So, yeah.

[226] I tried calling you guys on Friday.

[227] On Friday?

[228] Yeah, on Friday.

[229] On Friday evening?

[230] Yeah.

[231] Because I was on for a minute.

[232] You just couldn't get through?

[233] And I bailed.

[234] No, I called like twice and it just rang and rang and rang.

[235] Wow.

[236] We'd figure out how to have like a voicemail or something on that line.

[237] No, you don't.

[238] There are a lot of callers.

[239] It would be a full mailbox.

[240] That computer would crash even more.

[241] I don't know if that stuff's stored locally or probably it isn't.

[242] No, it's probably all on the...

[243] Somewhere.

[244] Yeah.

[245] It's on EC2.

[246] The cloud.

[247] Yeah.

[248] Hopefully on Amazon.

[249] Yeah.

[250] So fucking the fucking cloud.

[251] I told you guys.

[252] Yeah, you did.

[253] I warned you.

[254] Maybe it's because you told us.

[255] And they were just like, check it out.

[256] Maybe it was us.

[257] Maybe we broke the cloud.

[258] We were the last site on the internet to go up.

[259] The last last.

[260] They're like, all right, we got all this other stuff.

[261] Tested was up.

[262] Screened was up.

[263] Comic Bond was up.

[264] You've got to get to the core of the infection, right?

[265] You're peeling back layers.

[266] This was damaged.

[267] This was damaged.

[268] Getting down to it, like, what the fuck?

[269] And then it's just a bomb.

[270] This hateful black little core in the middle of this machine that won't die.

[271] That is a bomb.

[272] Exactly.

[273] And it was dropped by Amazon.

[274] I think as everybody in the tech world here, like our engineers have said, Amazon's done well by us previously, and we're going to stick around with them.

[275] Yeah, and the reason that you saw so many sites using them is because they are extremely cheap, and other than this one instance, they have been extremely reliable.

[276] It's not like other huge sites weren't using them.

[277] Reddit was down for the same amount of time.

[278] Yeah, Reddit was down, Foursquare was down, Quora was down.

[279] Yeah, there was a huge number of sites that were affected by this whole thing.

[280] We just ended up getting affected a little bit longer.

[281] It's a good learning experience.

[282] Certainly.

[283] And I feel like we still did our good goddamnedest to continue providing something to our users even when we didn't have a website.

[284] That tournament, man. How much fun was that?

[285] How much goddamn fun was that?

[286] That has to happen again.

[287] And that was supposed to happen during TNT, and that whole thing exploded.

[288] That's right.

[289] We got to the point where you started having more meltdowns, and you're just like, yeah, whatever.

[290] Fine.

[291] Not even related stuff.

[292] Yeah, unrelated.

[293] Don't staple that!

[294] Oh!

[295] Stapler's broken.

[296] Stapler's broken.

[297] Just can't staple anymore.

[298] Cloud -based stapler.

[299] Oh, stapling in the cloud.

[300] Yeah, so we had a really exhausting kind of end of the week.

[301] Well, that's the thing.

[302] To bring it back around, you know.

[303] Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat came out last week, but after all of last week's insanity, that felt like a lifetime ago.

[304] Like a month ago, right?

[305] That Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat came out.

[306] Sure.

[307] And Brad still hasn't finished it.

[308] I haven't barely touched it.

[309] We got a lot of Mortal Kombat in last week, just all around the board.

[310] So I jumped into it again this weekend and finished Mortal Kombat, the story mode.

[311] So did you bump it down to easy?

[312] No. You finished it?

[313] I did, I finished it.

[314] I get my ass whipped on these 2v1s.

[315] They are pretty rough.

[316] They're fucking killing me. They're killing me and they're killing my resolve.

[317] Because I'll keep on getting it, because you need to win four rounds.

[318] Yeah, essentially, yeah.

[319] In a row.

[320] Even the early ones are tough.

[321] Yeah, even the early ones aren't real slouches.

[322] I'm still in the first, like I'm on the Liu Kang stage of the first tournament, which I think is probably the end of MK1.

[323] But you're still in Mortal Kombat 1.

[324] I'm definitely still in MK1.

[325] They can be rough.

[326] You have to be so defensive.

[327] It kills my resolve because I'll get down to like I'll have one guy is out and I've got another guy that's down to just a little bit of a live bar and he still beats me out and I feel like I just expended all of this energy like really fighting these.

[328] Like I'm really fucking fighting these guys and pulling out as many of the scrubby bullshit moves as I know how to do with whatever character they happen to be.

[329] tossing me in with.

[330] Well, that's also kind of the problem, too, is that when you get stuck on those matches that you can't just, like, swap over to your go -to guy.

[331] You know what I mean?

[332] Like, if you're stuck with a character you don't like, like, you're just kind of stuck.

[333] But I did kind of like that, especially when I got to the very, very end of the game, and I don't think this will be a spoiler for anyone, but you fight some certain dudes.

[334] Well, people have been probably bitching about the bosses.

[335] Yeah, so when you're fighting Shao Kahn...

[336] It was really hard.

[337] But you can look it up because everybody has to fight them with the same guy, right?

[338] So at least you can hit the internet and be like, dudes, what did you do?

[339] Anybody who beat this game had to beat it with a certain guy.

[340] I heard Khan kind of falls back to Mortal Kombat's super cheap AI.

[341] It isn't nearly as cheap in this one.

[342] I feel like it's fun to fight against, but I've heard Khan is literally just...

[343] Fuck you.

[344] To be perfectly frank, it wouldn't be a Mortal Kombat game if you didn't have to cheese the last boss to beat him.

[345] Yeah, I guess that's true.

[346] So I just wind up cheesing the last boss.

[347] That shoulder thing.

[348] He does the shoulder thing.

[349] He does the kind of glowy invincibility thing where you're like, for no reason, this time you hit him, he just shrugs it off.

[350] And it's like, what'd you do?

[351] So, yeah, I kind of wound up cheesing him a bit and then beat him and put the controller down.

[352] But then I picked it back up immediately and started with the challenge tower stuff and some of the other stuff in there.

[353] Tried playing against Gary and Will and Jeff online.

[354] Doing, like, the King of the Hill.

[355] King of the Hill stuff, but the connections were a little weird and it kept messing up.

[356] Yeah, I've heard the netcode is a little.

[357] Well, so I wonder, like, I wonder if it is, like, Just the netcode is the issue.

[358] It's definitely something that catches blame, but...

[359] There's no PSN right now.

[360] Yeah.

[361] Still, as of this recording.

[362] And probably will not be for several days.

[363] Seems like that's going to continue to be the case.

[364] Which, again, that was happening while all this other shit was going sideways.

[365] Completely unrelated.

[366] PSN is down.

[367] Unrelated, but also all this Amazon EC2 stuff is down.

[368] Warcraft was down.

[369] Yeah, Warcraft went down for a couple of hours.

[370] Did Warcraft actually go down or just the Blizzard side?

[371] No, Warcraft Auth went down.

[372] Okay.

[373] So you couldn't sign it or anything?

[374] I think maybe if you were already in, you could keep going.

[375] I think login stuff.

[376] Okay.

[377] All right, fine.

[378] I'm never taking another vacation again.

[379] And look what you did.

[380] You tripped over the plug on your way out.

[381] You go drink some tequila and the internet.

[382] Yeah.

[383] Takes a nose dive.

[384] Good Lord.

[385] Yeah, a lot of...

[386] So I wonder if Xbox Live is getting hammered more because there is...

[387] There is no direct alternative.

[388] Granted, I mean, you're talking about how many people have both at their disposal.

[389] Or went out and got the other one.

[390] And they also, I think they made this past weekend free because PSN was down.

[391] So if you're a silver user, you could jump on.

[392] I wonder if that was preplanned or if that was just strictly...

[393] Do it!

[394] Flip the switch!

[395] They issued whole statements about PSN.

[396] I'm sure it was just part of a...

[397] Okay.

[398] Because I didn't realize when that announcement got made, so I wasn't sure.

[399] It was a little after PSN initially went down.

[400] So with PSN down.

[401] I went to dicks.

[402] Yes, but whatever.

[403] Make money.

[404] Get paid.

[405] I'm surprised to see Microsoft move that quickly.

[406] Got to get your cheese.

[407] As an organization, my impression of them was not that they were nimble enough to pull something like that off.

[408] Try and get one over on those cheese eaters, right?

[409] Yeah.

[410] Frickin' cheddar smokers.

[411] Cheese heads.

[412] Cheddar smokers?

[413] You can't see that in San Francisco, man. That's not cool.

[414] What are you talking about?

[415] Can't eat cheese?

[416] Don't Google eat cheese.

[417] Safe search on.

[418] Apparently the internet ain't down with some good lingo.

[419] Urban dictionary.

[420] Also, yeah, if you want to find some...

[421] See, what was it?

[422] Uncomfortable situation, you've got to keep safe search on if you're going to do an image search for that term.

[423] Oh, really?

[424] Yeah, I'm just saying.

[425] I'm just saying.

[426] Just let it be done.

[427] For as innocuous as uncomfortable situation sounds, you will find some great clip art, some great stock photos.

[428] Of uncomfortable situations.

[429] Of uncomfortable situations if you keep the...

[430] Safe search on.

[431] So with PSN down, can you log in and play Portal?

[432] No. So that's actually the thing that seems to be the hookup is that you can – if you try to log into Netflix, for example, it asks you for your login information.

[433] But if you let it fail a couple of times, it will just bypass the login.

[434] Because it's not tied to your account.

[435] It's just asking you to log in to PlayStation Network as you go into this internet service.

[436] Because all you need for Netflix on a PS3 is a PS3 on a Netflix account, right?

[437] Yes.

[438] Like, there's no service tied to that.

[439] They're just doing the login because that's just what you do for online service.

[440] It's not like with Xbox Live where it's like only gold members are getting access.

[441] Once the login fails, it just lets you go through.

[442] You can get game updates.

[443] And that little news stream, if you have it still turned on, is getting stuff.

[444] So it sounds like it is all tied to whatever authenticating the accounts, which is actually a fairly scary prospect.

[445] I only had it fail, like I tried out the Netflix thing, and I only had it fail once before it just kicked me straight into the app.

[446] That's good, because I like the Netflix on the PS3.

[447] But you can still play Portal offline, right?

[448] But you couldn't cash it in, the code.

[449] Oh, right.

[450] If you have a PS3 disc, you can play the PS3 disc.

[451] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[452] Absolutely.

[453] Absolutely.

[454] Yeah, I did that this weekend.

[455] I beat Portal 2.

[456] And then they finished it, and now here's what the ending to Portal 2 is.

[457] But then you can't log into your Steam stuff on the PS3 because it has to go through your PSN to get to the Steam stuff.

[458] So when I finish it on PC, when I can log back in on the PSN, will I get those trophies?

[459] No. I think it's the only other way, right?

[460] Well, I'll find out because I played through it with PSN down.

[461] And then I'll find out if that will sync over and give me all this stuff on Steam.

[462] I think it happens concurrently.

[463] Well, but it wouldn't have been connected.

[464] Well, yeah, not in your case.

[465] Because we did co -op on that little Tuesday shindig we did last week.

[466] Remember?

[467] And you were playing.

[468] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[469] And you were playing on Jeff's account on the PS3, right?

[470] That's right.

[471] I'm pretty sure I remember your trophies were popping on the TV, but on my side in Steam, I could see Jeff's account also getting the Steam.

[472] clicks back on, will it take all those offline trophies and just click it?

[473] You don't think I'll get trophies from playing on Steam?

[474] No. No. Probably not.

[475] Highly doubt it.

[476] Definitely not.

[477] I have to play it through again.

[478] Yeah.

[479] That's it.

[480] Do the dev commentary.

[481] Yeah, I tried, and then they were like, man, those things are so long.

[482] Can you do that on your second play?

[483] Yeah.

[484] Okay, okay, okay.

[485] Are they still doing their commentaries where they're just like little in -world cues that you have to go up and activate?

[486] Yep.

[487] I kind of wish those were just tied to, I mean, I love the concept, but I wish they were maybe just tied to like floor triggers just kind of as you're walking along.

[488] So it just happens.

[489] Stuff would just pop in maybe a little more naturally.

[490] Yeah, sometimes they're like so specifically trying to get you to look at a thing for them to.

[491] to comment on.

[492] Right, like this door here.

[493] Yeah.

[494] Although I have definitely, like, I haven't gone all the way through in all of the dev commentary in 2, but in the first one, like, you could miss prompts.

[495] Well, also, I might be remembering incorrectly, but weren't the audio sources, like, positional within the world?

[496] Like, if you walked away from it, didn't it fade out?

[497] Oh, I don't remember that.

[498] I haven't gotten that far away from it.

[499] I just, I mean, you need to go back.

[500] When I replayed it, I didn't put on the dev commentary, because I was stupid, but...

[501] That's a fun game.

[502] Portal 2.

[503] Yes, I agree.

[504] Really?

[505] It also made me realize that Half -Life is the only video game fiction I actually really give a shit about.

[506] I actually really, really like that world and want to know...

[507] You want to read a Half -Life book?

[508] I probably would.

[509] That's probably the only one I can think of that I would actually go and read outside sources.

[510] I think Portal is why I care about the Half -Life fiction at this point.

[511] I think the color...

[512] that Aperture Science brings to the yin to the yang.

[513] I remember that first moment you saw that blackboard in Portal 1 and you saw the bar graph with Black Mesa under it and you're just like, oh shit, these guys know what Black Mesa is.

[514] That totally made me care more about Half -Life.

[515] Yeah.

[516] Now I feel like I understand your pain of wanting to talk about stuff, but you can't really say anything.

[517] It's too soon.

[518] It is still way too soon.

[519] Everyone that's played can go, fucking that one part, yeah, right?

[520] Yeah.

[521] It's fun.

[522] It's definitely tight.

[523] It's a nice length, too.

[524] It doesn't really overstay its welcome, but it's a good length.

[525] It feels like a long game.

[526] And it's varied, which is nice.

[527] How's the girth?

[528] I'm not going to get into it.

[529] It's thick like a beer can.

[530] I waited too long.

[531] You always do, Brad.

[532] You always do.

[533] Just think about baseball.

[534] I pushed on through Dragon Age 2.

[535] You're not done with that yet?

[536] Our count.

[537] I don't know yet.

[538] You have to stop talking about Dragon Age 2.

[539] Why?

[540] I don't even run the show, but you have to stop.

[541] Every time you sound more and more depressed.

[542] Are you just doing it just to finish it now?

[543] No, like I said, I'm still interested.

[544] You make the most unconvincing argument.

[545] Well, it just seems to keep going.

[546] I'm getting the sense you just have to finish what you started.

[547] No, I'm invested in it.

[548] Do you think realistically you could just put it down?

[549] I could, for sure, yeah.

[550] Really?

[551] Well, I mean, I beat two other games in the meantime, so I put it down, spent my weekend playing Mortal Kombat.

[552] But you knew you'd come back.

[553] Yeah, I put too much time in it.

[554] I think I'm close.

[555] So you can't just walk away from it.

[556] Yeah, you're lying.

[557] I could.

[558] I could stop whatever I want.

[559] I would give you $100 to not finish Dragon Age 2.

[560] Really?

[561] Ever.

[562] Ever?

[563] Ever.

[564] Ever.

[565] You can never finish Dragon Age 2.

[566] I'll pitch money into that.

[567] Alright, so I've got backers here.

[568] What if there's like awesome DLC that comes out?

[569] Gosh, I don't know.

[570] You can never play it and find out.

[571] Why would you want to do that to me?

[572] I want to see if you can.

[573] To see if you crack.

[574] Can I play it on 360?

[575] No, you can never play Dragon Age 2.

[576] I could do it.

[577] You could never play Dragon Age 2.

[578] Can I watch somebody else?

[579] No. Can I read a wiki?

[580] You can read a wiki.

[581] I think I got the best sword in the game.

[582] Think of all those unfinished dungeons.

[583] Think of all those samey unfinished dungeons.

[584] Don't you remember that one cave?

[585] What if there's one more dungeon that you haven't seen yet?

[586] Oh, man. That would be like one -fifth of the content.

[587] What if there's near the end?

[588] You're actually an hour from the end of the game.

[589] Oh, there's this great fight and all this cool original assets.

[590] It all comes together.

[591] I don't think that's true at all.

[592] Then just stop.

[593] I shouldn't have to pay you.

[594] Well, the story's all right.

[595] Like I said, it's okay.

[596] $100.

[597] Next time.

[598] That's in the USDs.

[599] It's American.

[600] That money folds.

[601] Nah.

[602] You know what?

[603] I wouldn't take it.

[604] Nah, because you can't.

[605] I could.

[606] No, you couldn't.

[607] I got some pesos.

[608] Does that sweeten the deal?

[609] How many pesos are we talking about?

[610] A couple thousand.

[611] Yeah.

[612] Thousand?

[613] Fuck, man. That's some cheddar.

[614] That's some cheese.

[615] You can eat that cheese.

[616] I feel like I played something else, but I can't think.

[617] Speaking of games, I haven't finished yet.

[618] Maybe Brad, did you finish on a plane?

[619] Have you beaten Layton yet?

[620] No. In the underwound future?

[621] Yeah.

[622] I didn't even crack my DS open.

[623] Really?

[624] On this trip.

[625] Did you bring a 3DS?

[626] I didn't look at a screen.

[627] Wow.

[628] Of any kind.

[629] Except a screen door out onto the beach.

[630] That was all right.

[631] Yeah.

[632] That was a piece of business.

[633] Thank you.

[634] Yeah, I played some of that.

[635] I didn't play more Clash of Titan Heroes magic magicians.

[636] Heroes.

[637] You mean Might and Magic Clash of Heroes?

[638] Yes.

[639] Really still enjoying that.

[640] Yeah.

[641] Were you able to get over the, like, fuck you achievement hump?

[642] Actually, a lot of people chimed in saying that you can select your campaign after the fact.

[643] You can go back and there's like a dungeon you can grind.

[644] It seems like each world has like one place where you get random encounters.

[645] But is that after the whole thing?

[646] No, no, no. Like any time.

[647] Specifically speaking to the achievements, I guess you can go back and clean all that stuff up.

[648] You have to exit out of your game and start over.

[649] That works in perpetuity, right?

[650] You can always go back to whatever.

[651] So, like, I don't understand.

[652] I haven't tried it, but I guess you can go back in there, fight your way, and grind it out a bit, and then save it, and then exit and be able to pick up where you were last time.

[653] Because you're basically reentering a completed chapter.

[654] With a different character, right?

[655] With an independent level.

[656] I don't know.

[657] I haven't tried it.

[658] Maybe I'll try it.

[659] I don't know.

[660] There was enough people that said there's a way to do it.

[661] Yeah.

[662] Cool.

[663] So, yeah.

[664] I want to check that out again.

[665] But, man, those achievements are still rough.

[666] But I don't care.

[667] The gameplay is fun.

[668] Yeah.

[669] That game is a hell of a value.

[670] Yeah.

[671] That's got to be.

[672] I mean, granted, it has retail roots.

[673] On the DS, you know, it was sold in a box.

[674] Have you seen that on the DS graphics?

[675] Yeah.

[676] I saw a comparison.

[677] You should check it out.

[678] Oh, yeah?

[679] It's crazy.

[680] It was in the NeoGAF thread last week.

[681] Like, they went and, like, redid everything in that game.

[682] Wow.

[683] It's impressive.

[684] It's not up -res.

[685] It is, like...

[686] That explains the gap, because that game came out in, what, like, 09 on the DS?

[687] Something like a long, long time.

[688] It's been a good year and a half.

[689] Year and a half, at least.

[690] Yeah, that has to be why.

[691] So it's not even like, oh, we had these high -res art assets that we were working from.

[692] It looks completely different.

[693] The characters are in different poses and everything.

[694] Oh, wow.

[695] Crazy.

[696] Like, the units...

[697] Look, they're way more cartoony, and the bears look like little baby bears.

[698] Wow.

[699] Yeah, it's kind of bananas.

[700] But yeah, the game's just long.

[701] It'll take you a while.

[702] It sure does, yeah.

[703] I think I'm in like 12 hours or 9, 10 hours.

[704] Oh, wait, and in Portal 2, you only did the single player.

[705] You haven't touched the cooperative play yet.

[706] No, going to, though.

[707] It's kind of waiting to get through that single play before I jumped.

[708] I wasn't sure how the narrative stuff worked, so I wasn't sure if stuff would...

[709] Oh, like spoil the single player?

[710] Yeah, I don't think it does, right?

[711] You might as well wait, though.

[712] Yeah, although Stephen Totillo from Kotaku has been talking about how he's recommending folks play the co -op first.

[713] What?

[714] Yeah, which people have been, I think, understandably yelling at him about.

[715] Like, you are crazy!

[716] And I tend to agree with him.

[717] I mean, is it positioned chronologically as like a prequel or something?

[718] Don't talk about it.

[719] Yeah.

[720] Just don't say anything.

[721] Just mouth shut.

[722] It's too early.

[723] Yeah, I shouldn't have.

[724] Fair enough.

[725] If you want to know, go listen to the Portal 2 spoiler cast.

[726] Oh, just go play the game.

[727] Or just finish the end game.

[728] Oh, I will.

[729] Trust me. And I think that was pretty much it for my...

[730] Don't listen to that spoiler cast if you haven't.

[731] I'm going to go listen to the spoiler cast.

[732] You can listen to the spoiler cast.

[733] Oh, there's...

[734] Spiders.

[735] There's a Spiderman in here.

[736] Damn it.

[737] Brad is pointing at spiders.

[738] It's going to fall on my hair.

[739] I found a spider in my hair once.

[740] How could you find it?

[741] Who says he did it?

[742] I shook it out.

[743] It's still in there.

[744] It's got my whole family.

[745] I shook it out.

[746] Turns out Patrick's actually bald.

[747] What are you doing?

[748] He's going to try and...

[749] This is unprecedented.

[750] He's just going to kill it.

[751] He manned up with no one else would.

[752] I'm not letting that thing fall.

[753] He's got his nice little leather -bound notepad here.

[754] Is that a moleskin?

[755] You know, I couldn't find moleskins anymore.

[756] People stopped carrying them because they said they were like...

[757] Oh, well, I guess I always buy them at...

[758] Borders, which are frequently going out of business.

[759] Oh, yeah.

[760] I can't find a Borders anymore.

[761] I just went to a Borders that was on its way out.

[762] I was trying to buy a movie.

[763] So fuck you, Borders.

[764] People said something like they're totally environmentally devastating or something like that.

[765] Yeah, like they cure the leather in like one vat and then dump that vat into like the sea or something like that.

[766] I don't know, something crazy.

[767] I only buy it because I like the size.

[768] I like them.

[769] I like a good moleskin.

[770] I wrap my cheese around it.

[771] A good notepad.

[772] What kind of notepad?

[773] Like a mead?

[774] Like a marble?

[775] Moleskine.

[776] What's the brand?

[777] Moleskine?

[778] I believe.

[779] No, I know it's a brand, but what is it about the brand that other notepads don't have?

[780] It's elitist.

[781] Hemingway uses them.

[782] Used?

[783] No, he uses them.

[784] He's dead.

[785] What?

[786] He got bit by a spider.

[787] Bill Hemingway?

[788] Yes.

[789] Jimmy Hemingway.

[790] Yeah, forward for the New Jersey.

[791] I'm going to be looking up at that spider body the rest of this podcast because I just think it's going to fall in.

[792] Let's move on because I'm done.

[793] You've now marked this white room.

[794] The blood of the spider.

[795] This pristine room.

[796] I didn't say it was pristine, just white.

[797] That's all you played, sir?

[798] I think so.

[799] All right, moving on.

[800] Patrick Klepek.

[801] Well, I wish I could play Portal 2 Co -op, but PSN is down.

[802] But I guess, well, it's got split screen.

[803] Yeah.

[804] It does on the 360, so I would imagine I would have it on the PlayStation 3 as well.

[805] That is the best console version, so says Valve.

[806] I wonder if it's girlfriend -friendly enough.

[807] I believe it.

[808] I mean, Gabe said that at a Sony price conference, to be fair.

[809] Incredible place.

[810] But I saw some screenshot comparisons online that made the PS3 version look strikingly better.

[811] I mean, it looks nice.

[812] I mean, yeah, I played that little bit of the PS3 version last Tuesday.

[813] But I didn't spend that much more time on this.

[814] Do you want to see it on a PC now?

[815] It looks so good on a PC.

[816] It does look really nice on a PC.

[817] I feel like I did it the right way.

[818] Beat it on the PS3 and then I'll go and play it on someone's PC just to see what I missed rather than feeling sad when I'm like, aw.

[819] All right.

[820] Well, we can't talk about Portal.

[821] No. Oh, I bought a crap load of games because they were the Easter iOS sale.

[822] What did you get?

[823] I was telling nuts on my iPad.

[824] Well, I bought Dead Space.

[825] Yeah, I got that too.

[826] I heard that's good.

[827] I bought the iPad port of Max and the Magic Marker, which is a WiiWare game from like a year ago.

[828] It's like you play this little dude and use the Wiimote to draw objects to like mess around with the physics and the environment.

[829] But every time I played it on the Wii, it made more sense if I could touch it.

[830] So now it's on the iPad and it was a buck.

[831] But now it's probably like five bucks, which really is not that much money.

[832] Yeah, yeah.

[833] Well, it's a little wonky because it's fun to draw the objects, but you still have to press them.

[834] touch buttons on the screen to move left to right and to jump.

[835] And that stuff doesn't work really well when you have to press buttons.

[836] Ryan, you're trying to pull something up on your iPad.

[837] Nothing.

[838] I'm just making clandestine messaging with people.

[839] That's all.

[840] I'm doing work over here.

[841] That's all.

[842] I bought Uzu this weekend.

[843] Yeah, you have a visualizer.

[844] For no good reason.

[845] I bought a crazy visualizer.

[846] You have a good reason.

[847] You said something about cats.

[848] Oh, yeah.

[849] I was at a house where there were cats, and I wanted to make the cats freak out.

[850] It does ten -finger multi -touch.

[851] So, like, you do this.

[852] That's all the fingers.

[853] And you can actually change the color palette when you move your hands around.

[854] This is great.

[855] thing to talk about on a podcast is this visualizer.

[856] So you can see it's making the lines fatter or thinner.

[857] It's going to make it super fat.

[858] It's going to make it super thin.

[859] Uzu is something, isn't it?

[860] If you use two, you can just make them go into a little ball and move the ball around.

[861] I mean, it's a toy, but it's a fun toy.

[862] Get your own iPad.

[863] I like your screensaver.

[864] Thank you.

[865] Then I played three hours of...

[866] Monster Tail?

[867] That game from the Henry Hatsworth guys?

[868] Yeah, we quick looked at that.

[869] Yeah, that looked really awesome.

[870] I understand, in fact, that it looks...

[871] Awesome.

[872] Dot, dot, dot.

[873] Awesome.

[874] It has an unfortunately terribly generic title, but it's...

[875] It's like Henry Hatch where it uses a really interesting use of the two screens.

[876] Very few games on the DS actually use the second screen for anything interesting.

[877] It was like a cross between something and Cave Story.

[878] It's like Metroidvania with Pokemon.

[879] That's exactly what it seemed like.

[880] You've got your little creature on the second screen.

[881] Eat pizza, whatever it does.

[882] You're using these items to level them up and give them to abilities and then you're going through a skill tree based on on that and on the top screen you're doing like you know a really beautiful looking like 2d action platformer just like henry hatsworth i think i liked henry hatsworth more because i just liked It was like a variation of Tetris Attack on the second screen, which was Henry Hatsworth.

[883] Did all of you play Henry Hatsworth?

[884] I did not.

[885] That is really unfortunate.

[886] That was my favorite game from 2009.

[887] I kept hearing that it got so abusive as you went on.

[888] It is, but that's like four hours into the game.

[889] It's worth playing.

[890] It does get shitty eventually.

[891] They're specifically adding us the third level boss.

[892] It's like the underwater one.

[893] Yes.

[894] Some fat lady.

[895] Yes.

[896] Yeah, I persevered.

[897] I beat that.

[898] It only gets more difficult after that.

[899] I felt like that game, like, I love all of the ideas, but the actual...

[900] It's very overwhelming.

[901] Well, the actual back and forth between the, like, platformy stuff and then going into the puzzle game stuff, I felt like it never had...

[902] It could never find any momentum because there was this, like...

[903] very intrinsic start -stop to the two types of action.

[904] Which is the opposite in Monster Tail, because they kind of get rid of you having to actually do anything on the second...

[905] Like, it's there, but all you have to do is when you've got your items you're collecting as you're running around, and all you have to do is use your...

[906] I was using your thumb, so you don't actually have to put your hand down and grab the stylus and just direct your monster over to the items rather than having to go participate in a whole second game on the second screen, which kind of disrupts your platforming flow.

[907] And that's super tough when you have a game...

[908] where the two mechanics are.

[909] One of them is, all right, run around with the D -pad and buttons, and then, all right, stop, and now go to stylus.

[910] So you're never entirely comfortable in one or the other.

[911] It doesn't work 100 % because that screen is just not responsive enough.

[912] For a finger, yeah.

[913] For a finger, it's not like an iPhone or iPad where it's going to respond to every touch.

[914] You kind of got to film at it a couple of times, but it's a lot of fun.

[915] I kind of had that problem with Okami Den.

[916] on the DS.

[917] So you were trying to touch it rather than getting your stylus every 30 seconds.

[918] I had to add the stylus out.

[919] So it was like, okay, I'm running around the world using regular controls and then switch over to the other one.

[920] I just, I want you to commit.

[921] I want this either to be a stylus game or a not stylus game.

[922] Yeah.

[923] Anything else here?

[924] What was the name of that game again?

[925] Monster Tail.

[926] Monster Tail.

[927] Monster Tail from Dream Rift.

[928] You playing that on a, what flavor of DS are you on?

[929] I had it shoved in my DS Lite because I had forgotten, like, the power.

[930] Yeah, well, I had forgotten my power cord somewhere.

[931] But it's in my 3DS now because I just play it, like, when I'm commuting for, like, the 20 minutes on the BART.

[932] But, yeah, my 3DS battery seems to be getting worse and worse.

[933] I can't tell if it's just, like, actually happening or I'm just noticing it more because I just don't open it and then it just dies on me, like, two days later.

[934] That game scales pretty well.

[935] It's got pixel art, so the pixel art looks a little bit better than some of the 3D stuff.

[936] Is that kind of where people have seen the shakeout?

[937] I think it's game to game.

[938] My snap judgment was the opposite, but I tried all of two games.

[939] I think it really just depends.

[940] Some of the art styles look fine.

[941] Some of them look kind of shitty.

[942] I hope maybe in a software update they could just like...

[943] Provide you with more options for how to present the game and sort of tweak it.

[944] Well, let's walk before we can run.

[945] Let's get the eShop going first.

[946] So you can download your Mega Man Legends prototype version.

[947] Let's get the fundamental functionality.

[948] There are like three items on the main interface where it's like, yeah, it doesn't work yet.

[949] Just give us a minute.

[950] No, just hold on, okay?

[951] Late May, we'll get you.

[952] We got you.

[953] But it's in 3D.

[954] Yeah.

[955] Not down here, though.

[956] You've got to look up there, and it's in 3D.

[957] Stop looking down.

[958] I've got to go lay down.

[959] You can't touch the 3D.

[960] Just stop trying.

[961] Maybe you'll forget about this other stuff.

[962] And Brad didn't play anything, because...

[963] Hell no. I did some paintball in the jungle.

[964] Really?

[965] It was like 100 degrees.

[966] Guns N' Roses song.

[967] Yeah, something like that.

[968] Paintball in the jungle!

[969] Yeah, it was pretty rough.

[970] You want to know about DocuShow?

[971] Yeah.

[972] What else?

[973] No. Yeah.

[974] Donkey show?

[975] No, we didn't actually go.

[976] That's all border town shit.

[977] I didn't think they even existed there, but there was definitely a moment where some ill business was getting gotten up to.

[978] Certainly.

[979] Please tell me more about this donkey show.

[980] When we got in a taxi cab and someone said, La Casa de Budo, suddenly things seemed to be looking up, but it didn't actually turn around.

[981] I would say that things are spiraling wildly out of control.

[982] As you roll out of that cab.

[983] As you're like, no, fuck you guys, no. There were like eight people in that cab, and we were, only about half of them knew what was actually going on.

[984] Nobody could quite seem to decide or maybe admit if they were actually excited about the prospect.

[985] It's a bunch of, oh, no. I think it's one of those that you don't want to admit that you're excited, actually, if you are.

[986] But, man, it's a hell of a story.

[987] Yeah.

[988] Yeah.

[989] I could.

[990] Yeah.

[991] No, no, no. Maybe.

[992] We were just under strict orders as long as we didn't disfigure the groom's face.

[993] I think it was pretty much fair game.

[994] So you were just paving the way in Mexico for other Americanos to head down there for debauchery.

[995] Very possibly.

[996] There's a list of people heading back down to Mexico.

[997] Johnny B's down there this weekend.

[998] Oh, no. Really?

[999] What the fuck are you doing, man?

[1000] You can't say that shit out loud.

[1001] What are you talking about?

[1002] You have to bleep that.

[1003] I read it off Adam's Twitter and Johnny's Twitter.

[1004] Oh, that's right.

[1005] Yeah, Johnny found out.

[1006] Yeah, I'm not going to that.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] Where are they going?

[1009] Let's not divulge that.

[1010] You can bleep that.

[1011] We're just not going to say where they're going.

[1012] I don't know.

[1013] I don't know where they're going.

[1014] Somewhere in Mexico.

[1015] All right.

[1016] Moving on.

[1017] Some sort of resort town -y type thing.

[1018] Similar, I'm sure, to what you're doing.

[1019] That's right.

[1020] Nice old resort.

[1021] Wherever there are pools with bars.

[1022] That's right.

[1023] I'm sure there will be pools with bars.

[1024] Actually, they were talking about a house nearby or something.

[1025] I mean, at some point, you can't tell somebody to please just bear with me, get on this plane, stop asking questions.

[1026] Adam, where are we going?

[1027] Just trust me. Oh, no, no, no. At some point, you have to see, I got this ticket from Mexico, Adam.

[1028] What's going on?

[1029] I specifically blew someone else's bachelor party surprise because I thought that person knew that it was happening already.

[1030] And so I was all like, hey, man, have fun in Tahoe.

[1031] And he turned to his friends and said, we're going to Tahoe?

[1032] And I was like, oh, god damn it.

[1033] You know what?

[1034] I was surprised.

[1035] It was Craig Kuyava.

[1036] It was Craig Kuyava's bachelor party that I blew in front of Adam.

[1037] And so I thought like, you know, reprivals were coming forthwith because I thought it was just going to get burgered to death for that one.

[1038] But that didn't happen.

[1039] So thank God.

[1040] Well, hopefully I'll check with you after this podcast, but I think Kat's out of the bag.

[1041] No, no, no. You're right.

[1042] I think you're right.

[1043] I think you're right.

[1044] I think you're right.

[1045] So best of luck to Johnny V. Yeah.

[1046] And call up Brad if you want to know where some good action is down in Mexico.

[1047] No, no. They're definitely.

[1048] What's that?

[1049] I know you're just being funny, but there's still a far enough away.

[1050] Mexico is a small place.

[1051] I've never been.

[1052] You've never been to Mexico?

[1053] I've never been to Canada.

[1054] Not even Niagara Falls?

[1055] Mm -mm.

[1056] Why would I go to Niagara Falls?

[1057] I don't know.

[1058] I love California.

[1059] I've never been to China.

[1060] I've never been to China.

[1061] I've been to Chinatown.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] Close enough.

[1064] In New York?

[1065] No. I haven't been to New York City since I was...

[1066] I think there's a Chinatown in everywhere.

[1067] I think there's a Chinatown in, like, Ohio.

[1068] No. You don't?

[1069] No. And nowhere in the city.

[1070] Well, I mean, I don't think there is a town called Chinatown.

[1071] I don't think you can go to Chinatown, comma, OH.

[1072] Chinatown, USA.

[1073] Yeah.

[1074] What happens if you go to Google Maps and just type in Chinatown?

[1075] Chinatown?

[1076] I bet you get San Francisco.

[1077] I bet it's location -based.

[1078] You'll probably get San Francisco.

[1079] Yeah.

[1080] I don't know.

[1081] Who knows?

[1082] It'll be a mystery forever.

[1083] Who has the better Chinatown?

[1084] I know you're going to say New York.

[1085] No, you know.

[1086] I think San Francisco Chinatown.

[1087] Really?

[1088] Yeah.

[1089] That's kind of definitive Chinatown.

[1090] I frankly think that Clement Street is more Chinatown than Chinatown.

[1091] Yeah, I mean, Chinatown, in a way, is not...

[1092] Chinatown's a little novelty Chinatown.

[1093] It's like tourist Chinatown.

[1094] It kind of is.

[1095] But if it's...

[1096] I don't know.

[1097] Clement Street's where you can just go haggle over roasted ducks hanging in the window.

[1098] I think you could do that.

[1099] You could do that in Chinatown, but that's all you do.

[1100] out there.

[1101] San Francisco is a pretty big Chinatown.

[1102] There's a huge Chinese population in all of San Francisco.

[1103] That's China burbs is really what Clement Street is.

[1104] Yeah, there's a density of Chinatown, but you'll get just more China you go out to the burbs.

[1105] It's more spread out.

[1106] Less souvenirs and stuff, more just everyday.

[1107] Sure, there are still plenty of bullshit shops on Plummet Street.

[1108] If you need random Chinese goods...

[1109] Quite right.

[1110] Just want a bag of random Chinese...

[1111] Here's 20 bucks.

[1112] If you need plastic backpacks and folding chairs and...

[1113] A couple of waving cats and...

[1114] Boxes of pens and a mop and a sword.

[1115] And this Yankee's hat.

[1116] A real sword or a plastic sword?

[1117] Both a real sword and a plastic sword.

[1118] Yeah.

[1119] If you need some cleaning supplies.

[1120] A kimono.

[1121] Some giant apparel.

[1122] Yeah, you need some giant apparel.

[1123] You need an alarm clock.

[1124] A set of ornamental teacups.

[1125] Is this all in my $20 gift bag?

[1126] That's probably like five so far.

[1127] Yeah, keep going.

[1128] You need like very tiny shoes.

[1129] You mean like novelty?

[1130] No, like baby shoes.

[1131] Like baby shoes.

[1132] They have, yeah.

[1133] They're just the shops where it's like.

[1134] Fucking anything and everything that you could possibly imagine.

[1135] Whatever we can get our hands on, we're going to sell it to.

[1136] A bunch of trucks tipped over.

[1137] Exactly.

[1138] Put this stuff in a store.

[1139] Toilet paper.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] A bunch of blouses.

[1142] Some questionably stuffed kids' toys full of that beady.

[1143] It might be asbestos, but you're really not sure.

[1144] Misspelled coloring books.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] Off -brand Spider -Man comics and stuff.

[1147] That's right.

[1148] Off -brand Spider -Man comics.

[1149] You know, Spader -Man.

[1150] Video games.

[1151] Everyone's favorite.

[1152] Video games.

[1153] Gosh, I played some video games.

[1154] What did I play?

[1155] You already beat Portal 2 like three times.

[1156] I already beat Portal 2 like three times.

[1157] Like two and a half.

[1158] Yeah, like two and a half times.

[1159] We just played a little bit of the next big thing.

[1160] We did just play a little bit of the next big thing.

[1161] Yeah, it seemed like a very traditional point and click adventure game.

[1162] Yeah, yeah.

[1163] Good dialogue.

[1164] I think so.

[1165] I believe they're French.

[1166] From what I saw, it seemed really interesting.

[1167] It's the runaway guys, right?

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] Are they Eastern European?

[1170] No. They're either French or Spanish.

[1171] Oh, wait.

[1172] Maybe they're Spanish.

[1173] They might be Spanish.

[1174] Non -American.

[1175] Yeah.

[1176] Some sort of European.

[1177] But some decent dialogue still.

[1178] Snappy.

[1179] Yes.

[1180] Despite the non -nativeness of it.

[1181] But very, very, very traditional.

[1182] Like pixel hunt?

[1183] Not in that way, but in the...

[1184] Seven lines of text in the dialogue tree.

[1185] You are going to go through a lot of dialogue.

[1186] Blocks of it.

[1187] It's not like the streamlined...

[1188] Kick back and relax.

[1189] But I mean, it's sort of...

[1190] You're right, it's not as streamlined, but there's something to be said for...

[1191] Alright, dude, just...

[1192] Chill the fuck out for a second.

[1193] Just enjoy the conversation.

[1194] I feel like they were really, at least in the early going in that game, they were really delivering a lot of information about the setting and the context.

[1195] What is the setup?

[1196] So it's kind of like a golden age of Hollywood where monster movies are extremely popular, except that monsters are real.

[1197] This sounds awesome.

[1198] So it all starts at this point.

[1199] But they're like actors.

[1200] But yeah, so it's like the monsters are the stars.

[1201] They're trying to get acceptance, it seems like.

[1202] Well, they have certain amounts.

[1203] So there's some monsterism.

[1204] So there's some monsterism happening, and you're playing as this reporter who might be a little crazy, but kind of how that is coming through.

[1205] Like a little bit off, like a split personality.

[1206] Yeah, sometimes.

[1207] We didn't get very far.

[1208] But it's the kind of thing where you're like, that was weird.

[1209] That seemed kind of random.

[1210] But it happens again.

[1211] You're like, okay, you're building something here.

[1212] I like that.

[1213] I like it when it doesn't just like, here's everything that's happening right up front.

[1214] Like, it was kind of teasing out some stuff.

[1215] Like, we're going to keep calling back to this one joke over and over again.

[1216] And, you know, stuff is going to eventually make some more sense.

[1217] So I found it initially intriguing for sure.

[1218] What else are we playing?

[1219] It's just so much MK.

[1220] I was kind of tired after the tournament and hearing the game all day.

[1221] I kind of needed like a break.

[1222] That was what the weekend was for.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] That was your no -MK zone.

[1225] No -MK zone.

[1226] But now I'm ready to get back into it.

[1227] I just want to say again that that tournament was so much goddamn fun to participate in.

[1228] It was.

[1229] Good matches, too.

[1230] We shouldn't have to throw that fight against Gary to get back in the control room.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] You know, I may have...

[1233] When I initially made those brackets, you know, I didn't...

[1234] Think about the implications of both you and myself.

[1235] And Drew.

[1236] And Drew all being in it when we were going to.

[1237] It was fun.

[1238] He beat me fair and square.

[1239] Televise it that way.

[1240] What would I have done if I had been here?

[1241] You wouldn't have been in a scrub league.

[1242] You would have placed out.

[1243] You would have done commentary with Jeff probably.

[1244] Man, a bummer for Jeff.

[1245] He just had to sit there and not play.

[1246] I think he wound up playing the winner of the tournament at the end.

[1247] Which is a smoke on smoke battle where you had.

[1248] No idea who or what was going on.

[1249] I don't know how they knew what was going on.

[1250] And I was like lone commentator at that point.

[1251] I'm like, I'm just going to put the mic up.

[1252] Because I really can't tell.

[1253] And that match came down to like a sliver of life between the two of them.

[1254] Pretty close.

[1255] Alexis fucking threw down.

[1256] Yeah, Brad, you played a little bit against him earlier.

[1257] He's got a little bit of skill.

[1258] Yeah, he knows what he's doing.

[1259] If I learned anything from that tournament, if you know how to use those teleporting guys, and you don't know how to block, or if you don't use block...

[1260] There is an abnormally high number of teleports in the new Mortal Kombat.

[1261] There are a lot of characters.

[1262] Notice that.

[1263] The ninjas.

[1264] Not even just the ninjas, though.

[1265] There's a lot of teleporting going on.

[1266] Especially if you count teleports that make you come in from another part of the screen.

[1267] Not just disappear, reappear, but say Molina's Dropkick or whatever.

[1268] Dude.

[1269] I'll say a third of the characters.

[1270] All those prey upon if you don't use block.

[1271] If you aren't using block, they're going to get you every single...

[1272] Because if you block those, that's a significant window to take advantage.

[1273] But if you're not learning block, then...

[1274] Screwed.

[1275] But it was fun just having everyone in the office super excited about playing some MK.

[1276] Like I said, it hasn't really happened since Street Fighter 4.

[1277] This was way bigger.

[1278] This was way bigger because there were way more people were interested in it, at least within the office here of non -fighting game fans.

[1279] And then getting the betting brackets, the betting pool up, and getting people invested in that sum I thought was fun.

[1280] That initial upset where I took out.

[1281] Alex.

[1282] Everyone was very...

[1283] It was nothing but upsets.

[1284] The entire bracket.

[1285] I knocked Koontz out and everyone was sure Koontz was going to take it.

[1286] He was the odds -on, the far away odds -on favorite.

[1287] And he was practicing that katana all day.

[1288] Oh, really?

[1289] And I was scared because katana is...

[1290] It's a tough one if you aren't using your blocks, but you took them out.

[1291] That was fun.

[1292] That was damn fun.

[1293] And he had to use the mic and all that other dumb stuff that we did.

[1294] Did you play anything else?

[1295] Oh, God, I'm trying to think.

[1296] No. I played some...

[1297] Did you actually play Dead Space or did you just download it?

[1298] I just downloaded it.

[1299] It was a dollar.

[1300] Yep.

[1301] I keep playing Words with Friends.

[1302] I don't know.

[1303] I keep buying games on my iPad.

[1304] And not playing them.

[1305] Not really.

[1306] Not really playing them.

[1307] That's the problem with dollar things.

[1308] Oh, yeah.

[1309] Oh, yeah.

[1310] I'll buy that.

[1311] I hear that's good enough.

[1312] Yeah, I'll throw a dollar at...

[1313] Dead Space, whatever.

[1314] Never mind, I still have Dead Space and Dead Space 2 fucking mostly unplayed.

[1315] Yeah, that is funny that you bought Dead Space.

[1316] I guess so.

[1317] Yeah, that is a little weird.

[1318] I bought Metro 2033 this morning.

[1319] Oh, yeah?

[1320] Just woke up, saw it on sale on Steam.

[1321] I love that game.

[1322] 20 bucks.

[1323] I love that game.

[1324] I need to go check it out.

[1325] Ghost Train.

[1326] I say I don't know what that even means.

[1327] I want to.

[1328] I'm not going to say anything else.

[1329] Bullets for money.

[1330] One of my favorite moments from that year.

[1331] Ghost Train.

[1332] Yeah, so I'm excited.

[1333] Maybe next week.

[1334] I'll hear a little bit about that.

[1335] Find some time.

[1336] Don't put that game on hard or anything.

[1337] Just set it normal.

[1338] Just ratchet it down.

[1339] I should finish Fallout before I finish that.

[1340] Which one?

[1341] New Vegas?

[1342] That show's short.

[1343] Is it?

[1344] You didn't finish New Vegas?

[1345] No. I never did.

[1346] That's a good finish, too.

[1347] I know.

[1348] In fact, that game's all about the finish.

[1349] See what happens when you cheat.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] You're cheating yourself.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] I don't know.

[1354] Oh, I forgot you cheated.

[1355] What?

[1356] I forgot that you cheated your way through that game.

[1357] What did you do?

[1358] I didn't finish it, so I didn't cheat my way through it.

[1359] I opened up the console.

[1360] I gave myself some stuff.

[1361] Don't shake your head.

[1362] Whatever.

[1363] I didn't finish the game.

[1364] You should do that in Dragon Age.

[1365] Open up the console?

[1366] You can.

[1367] Can you really?

[1368] Yeah.

[1369] Are you serious?

[1370] Skip ahead.

[1371] But you got to do a separate shortcut to enable the console.

[1372] That's too much work for me. I don't want to do that.

[1373] Instead, you'll just play 65 hours of the game and hate yourself.

[1374] Whatever.

[1375] Dragon Age.

[1376] I don't load up Dragon Age and have the...

[1377] Dog's eyes on the side of its head or I'm not clipping into a mountain.

[1378] There's other problems.

[1379] There's no mountain.

[1380] That came from a hateful place.

[1381] That's the problem.

[1382] That's right.

[1383] It did.

[1384] It totally did.

[1385] So you'd rather have like polished mediocrity than flawed brilliance?

[1386] Yes.

[1387] No, I'm not saying one is better than the other.

[1388] I'm saying I was able to tune Fallout to compensate for that.

[1389] There's no adding content to...

[1390] There's no drop -down command for make more dungeons.

[1391] Just put some new wallpaper on this dungeon.

[1392] Just change some of these textures.

[1393] Dragon Age 2.

[1394] Just take in some of the Fallout textures.

[1395] Brad, did you finish Fallout Vegas?

[1396] I didn't really start it.

[1397] Fired it up on the PC just to see what it looked like.

[1398] I finished that.

[1399] Maybe I'll get back to it.

[1400] I haven't really felt like going to the DLC, though.

[1401] DLC's terrible.

[1402] Was it only Dead Money?

[1403] Yeah, the only one they put out so far.

[1404] It was really bad.

[1405] It had ghosts in it, right?

[1406] Yes.

[1407] Basically.

[1408] Basically.

[1409] Yeah, I'll wait for the new DLC.

[1410] When I was done, I was like, unlike Fallout 3 where I was like, I'm in, I want to play another 30 hours.

[1411] Like, New Vegas, I was just, I'm done with these combat mechanics and the glitches.

[1412] Well, so, I mean, I had my game, like, I had very little in the way of glitches and I had my game tuned in such a way that I didn't have to do that much fighting.

[1413] That's what I mean.

[1414] Like, I enjoyed it, but I was like, I shouldn't be enjoying the other parts of this game more if, like, these mechanics were part of, like, an actual sequel rather than just, like...

[1415] A story expansion.

[1416] Yeah, I mean, I thought the story was really good.

[1417] I'll finish up next weekend.

[1418] Metro 23rd.

[1419] I actually went through and got all of the different endings of that.

[1420] Did you?

[1421] You just reloaded series?

[1422] Yeah, I had a...

[1423] It doesn't lock you in pretty early on?

[1424] No, not like...

[1425] I mean, I had to roll back a couple of hours.

[1426] But it's not too bad.

[1427] Oh, really?

[1428] But it's not the same way as, like, Fallout 3 was.

[1429] You made a choice.

[1430] You can put off those choices to, like, way, way, way later.

[1431] That's also true.

[1432] And then you just save, and then you've got, like, three hours that you have to go through again.

[1433] Just branch out.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] Only, like, probably a half hour if you just pump everything up.

[1436] Probably.

[1437] Just give yourself all the best guns and warp to the place you've got to go.

[1438] Well, that's the thing.

[1439] It's like, that game, it isn't hard.

[1440] It's not like I was, like...

[1441] Once you've got all the dialogue, it's just kind of...

[1442] Like I said – You don't have to – combat or all dialogue plus two side guys.

[1443] Yeah.

[1444] You just walk through the game.

[1445] When you've got your two homies with you and they're well -rested and well -armed, you barely have to fight.

[1446] The only thing I'd use the console for, in all honesty, was lockpicking.

[1447] Putting up my lockpick skill because I hate when shit's locked and I can't get in.

[1448] Don't – Like you're three points off.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] You can't get in that door.

[1451] You're never going to go back.

[1452] Never going to go back.

[1453] You're not going to go back.

[1454] And then I did use it for a couple of times to just warp around like a goddamn fucking mountain.

[1455] Because I was like, I can't.

[1456] You know what?

[1457] There did happen a couple of days in New Vegas where I just didn't know how to get to the location.

[1458] And I spent 20 minutes just like traversing.

[1459] Mountain climbing.

[1460] Fall 3 was way worse about that.

[1461] I never had a problem with that in Fall 3.

[1462] So it's kind of fun when you're just like, no clip.

[1463] Boom.

[1464] Is there anything inside those mountains?

[1465] That's where they hide all the rest of the glitches.

[1466] It's fucking hell in there.

[1467] You don't want to see it in there.

[1468] It's a dark, dark place.

[1469] Just people with heads on upside down.

[1470] It's where Scorpion lives, right?

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] Nether Realms.

[1473] Whipping people and people with arms on their heads.

[1474] It's crazy in there.

[1475] I still...

[1476] Every time Scorpion comes into or exits a room in Mortal Kombat in the main story is so fucking funny to me. I'm so glad I got all that backstory filled in now.

[1477] Or at least in the new one.

[1478] I feel like I'm up to date.

[1479] I don't...

[1480] I don't know if backstory is the right word for that.

[1481] Mythology?

[1482] Mythological basis?

[1483] Foundation?

[1484] None of it was written back then, though.

[1485] Like, they contrived so much stuff for this story mode.

[1486] They just, like, characters are in places they shouldn't be because they didn't exist at that point and, like, a bunch of weird...

[1487] But even then, they kind of, like, when they introduce, like, Kung Lao...

[1488] I'm not saying they don't justify it.

[1489] But they almost imply that, yeah, that guy was there.

[1490] You just didn't get to see him.

[1491] Some of those cases.

[1492] Yeah, but, like, you roll into the first tournament and, like, Quan Chi is just hanging out.

[1493] Yeah.

[1494] I think it's close enough.

[1495] Not accurate to the timeline.

[1496] But they've been rich.

[1497] There is no timeline.

[1498] And they've also been rewriting that timeline every time they fucking make a new game.

[1499] I guess we need a new reason for a tournament.

[1500] Shit.

[1501] Shit, we sold it in the last one.

[1502] We're going to make more realms.

[1503] There's new Elder Gods.

[1504] Elder Gods 2.

[1505] But they're from the Elder God realm.

[1506] So inside where the Elder Gods are from.

[1507] That's why they made War Gods.

[1508] There's another realm.

[1509] I mean, they do a pretty good job making that stuff seem cohesive.

[1510] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1511] I'm not saying that it's not a coherent storyline.

[1512] It's just horribly inaccurate.

[1513] It's the rich tapestry of Mortal Kombat fiction.

[1514] You're saying it's not historically accurate?

[1515] Yes, exactly.

[1516] This is an interpretation of the story.

[1517] So you don't think fucking...

[1518] It's a reimagining.

[1519] You don't think Sub -Zero and Scorpion are super fucking old?

[1520] Sure.

[1521] There's like three Sub -Zeros in the...

[1522] Yeah, it's always been that way.

[1523] Oh, really?

[1524] There's always a zillion Sub -Zeros.

[1525] I didn't know Noob was a Sub -Zero.

[1526] That...

[1527] I think that happened way later.

[1528] That happened after I...

[1529] Come on.

[1530] No, dude, that's like three games old, but it happened way after I checked out of the series.

[1531] Oh, but they have stated that in the past.

[1532] Yeah, that's a thing, apparently.

[1533] That must have happened after three.

[1534] No, it was way later than that.

[1535] It was like somewhere on the PS2 Xbox, I think.

[1536] I think most of that stuff is drawn from...

[1537] Let's use Brad's words.

[1538] The tapestry, right?

[1539] Sure.

[1540] The threads of Mortal Kombat.

[1541] Like Jeff was saying last week, all that story stuff previously was three lines at the bottom of an attract screen on an arcade cabinet.

[1542] It was just justification to have a character, not necessarily storyline.

[1543] Right, right.

[1544] It is kind of funny, though, at the end of MK9, I guess it leads right in.

[1545] I only know this from what you guys were doing with the other Mortal Kombat games in the lead up, like the really bad ones.

[1546] Deception and Shaolin.

[1547] I guess it picks up right at the end of 3, I guess.

[1548] What were we doing on Wednesday?

[1549] What game were we playing?

[1550] Do you remember Wednesday of last week?

[1551] Yeah.

[1552] Was it Shaolin Monks?

[1553] No, that was on Friday.

[1554] Friday was Shaolin Monks and Special Forces.

[1555] Oh, you guys brought in Shaolin.

[1556] Oh, man. Which still looks remarkably good.

[1557] Shaolin Monks is a good game.

[1558] I think they referenced all that stuff.

[1559] Why is that game not on XBLA and PSN?

[1560] Because Midway doesn't exist anymore.

[1561] Crime Against Humanity.

[1562] Find a way.

[1563] WWE owns it, I'm sure.

[1564] Find a way.

[1565] All right.

[1566] That's a fun game.

[1567] Get that code.

[1568] That's a good, fun two -player game.

[1569] It still looks good and fun.

[1570] I also played some, dusted off some Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[1571] Oh, man. For the Da Vinci stuff?

[1572] Yeah, for the Da Vinci stuff.

[1573] I still need to get into that.

[1574] Is that any good?

[1575] The DLC with the first Asperger's 2 is not that great.

[1576] Yeah, AC2 DLC is not great.

[1577] This is better than that.

[1578] It's bigger and has more kind of story hooks to it.

[1579] Is it worth going back?

[1580] I'm definitely running into more of one of the things that I felt they did a really good job of tamping down in Brotherhood that was more annoying in Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2, which were hard pass -fail conditions for the missions that you're on.

[1581] I felt like in Brotherhood, it was all about the gradation.

[1582] You're 100 % completion.

[1583] Yeah, you're 100 %ing these missions rather than pass -field.

[1584] It's like, okay, you got...

[1585] You didn't get all of it, but you still passed the mission, but you still got through it, so that's enough, but you won't get the cool bonus thing.

[1586] You can brute force your way.

[1587] Exactly.

[1588] I'm finding way more missions within this set that are like, nope, you got seen, game over, and it's very unsatisfying.

[1589] when that happens.

[1590] Are they checkpoint you okay?

[1591] Do they give you, at least, like, you don't have to redo the whole mission, right?

[1592] Sometimes.

[1593] Sometimes.

[1594] I remember even just from that quick look, running into that problem.

[1595] Yeah, it was more of that stuff.

[1596] Yeah, we did that quick look of the Da Vinci stuff, and I went back to it, and, yeah, that same problem kind of persists some, but if you're still playing Brotherhood Online, that introduces...

[1597] Are there still people?

[1598] I didn't throw in, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[1599] I mean, that game's, like, pretty...

[1600] singular as far as multiplayer experiences go.

[1601] Maybe we go back to that for another TNT at some point.

[1602] That was a fun one.

[1603] Maybe.

[1604] We've already done it twice.

[1605] Did we do it twice?

[1606] No, just one.

[1607] Maybe not for a full TNT, but we've totally played that on multiple TNTs.

[1608] I think we did the beta once at some point.

[1609] I don't remember.

[1610] I don't know.

[1611] Yeah, I don't remember the context, but we've done at least two of those.

[1612] Maybe we do like a greatest hit at some point.

[1613] Yeah, maybe.

[1614] Maybe.

[1615] Maybe.

[1616] World's full of maybes.

[1617] Yeah.

[1618] To make sure that my PlayStation 3 would correctly play MK Shallon Monks and MK Special Forces last week, I booted up a little Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for the PlayStation 2 and totally went online and made a server and it fucking totally worked and it blew my goddamn mind.

[1619] Didn't you play with people too?

[1620] Yeah, but how?

[1621] How?

[1622] You start a server.

[1623] Yeah, but did you tell people to join?

[1624] Yeah, I just went on Twitter and said, I'm playing.

[1625] I thought maybe miraculously there were other people just waiting.

[1626] Oh, my God.

[1627] Waiting for someone to create a server.

[1628] So basically like the central server, like the master server.

[1629] West coast, east coast.

[1630] Is dead.

[1631] So like when you first say like, hey, let's get a game going.

[1632] It's like searches, searches, searches, times out.

[1633] It's like, all right, no, there's no master server.

[1634] But then it still brings up that main list of like east one, west one.

[1635] And you can go into there and you can just start a server.

[1636] So, all right, well, I'm the server now.

[1637] I was just amazed because that game has crazy network options because it came out before the PS2 network adapter came out.

[1638] So they supported all sorts of weird, like, third -party network adapters.

[1639] You'd go buy, like, a weird little SMC Ethernet adapter and plug it in through USB to the front of your PS2, and it would make that shit work.

[1640] And it works just with the PS3?

[1641] Yeah, so I just, you know, I was curious.

[1642] I'm like, what happens if I put this into my PS3?

[1643] Oh, yeah, I didn't even think about that.

[1644] And try and go.

[1645] And it was totally able to just map all that shit to the regular network interface on the PS3, which is pretty...

[1646] That's actually kind of amazing, actually.

[1647] Kind of amazing.

[1648] Kind of amazing, considering kind of the layers of emulation that you're going through with a PS3 playing PS2 games.

[1649] I was a little bit impressed, and that game is still fucking dope.

[1650] For TNT this week, we're playing Tony Alex's First Skater 3.

[1651] Dust it off.

[1652] Get your adapters ready.

[1653] That's right.

[1654] Either get out of PS2 or hope you have a backwards compatible PS3 because Xbox Live is down, so there's no fucking way we can play the Xbox version.

[1655] Xbox Live is down?

[1656] Yeah.

[1657] Remember?

[1658] You were there.

[1659] You saw it.

[1660] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1661] Well, no, we didn't really see.

[1662] Well, you know.

[1663] I heard about it later on.

[1664] A couple days later, we heard that it was taken down.

[1665] I thought you meant like currently.

[1666] I was like, what the fuck is going on?

[1667] Xbox Live to go down?

[1668] I've got something in my head that lets me know whenever Xbox Live goes down.

[1669] Partner net's down.

[1670] God damn it.

[1671] That's right.

[1672] That was the harbinger.

[1673] That was it.

[1674] That's where it started.

[1675] Yeah, it was all downhill.

[1676] Or uphill.

[1677] Sort of.

[1678] It was a hill.

[1679] A weird series of coincidences.

[1680] It was absolutely that.

[1681] But we went through it all.

[1682] All right.

[1683] Let's talk about news.

[1684] Patrick Klepek.

[1685] Yeah.

[1686] What the shit is going on in news other than everything's breaking?

[1687] We're going to be playing a new Nintendo console at E3.

[1688] Holy crap.

[1689] So Nintendo has gone out and confirmed.

[1690] I guess what started off as a Game Informer informed leak.

[1691] Yes.

[1692] Where they're like, we know a guy, and we trust this guy, and he says there's going to be a new fucking Nintendo console.

[1693] There's a guy in the streets of Minnesota, and they found him.

[1694] They found Prince.

[1695] I wish that was a resource.

[1696] And it said Prince.

[1697] I know the internet's dead, but what about the Wii?

[1698] And he's like, no, there's going to be a new one of those.

[1699] Yeah, it's going to be playable at E3.

[1700] Like, we're going to get, like, they, like, Nintendo even clarified that it's not just, there will be.

[1701] playable demos up on a stage.

[1702] Like, people will be playing it.

[1703] They're not just going to tie it to a bunch of women?

[1704] Well, I would not count that out.

[1705] I would not count that out.

[1706] Maybe they'll strap a whole TV and a console.

[1707] Leave it as a real bulk of women.

[1708] Leave it as a real...

[1709] Just a bunch of dudes.

[1710] Just giant dudes.

[1711] Just check it out.

[1712] It's HD.

[1713] Like, I think you're missing...

[1714] Check it out.

[1715] It's HD.

[1716] No, the console.

[1717] Do you think they hurriedly cobbled together a more significant presence for this thing based on all the stuff leaking?

[1718] Do you think the initial plan was for this thing to be out there and this playable at this early stage?

[1719] Maybe.

[1720] I mean, they rushed things together for the 3DS too, but I expect that was to be announced at E3 last year anyway.

[1721] But they announced it because they knew that...

[1722] financial papers in japan were going to disclose that it existed right because they were looking at like the production lines uh this is a pretty much the exact same scenario yeah it's a similar scenario really subdued like paragraph of text just like oh yeah yeah yeah i mean they did at least disclose that the reason uh they don't have any sales projections like in their financial data is because it will not come out until after next april at least so the original rumors were that it might come out next fall so if it's coming out after april that does Maybe not next fall, but at least we're not going to see it until next summer.

[1723] Holiday 12.

[1724] You think they would show it at two E3s before we'd be able to buy one?

[1725] That just seems like a long time.

[1726] I'd love to see a good summer console launch.

[1727] That would be neat.

[1728] It's been a while.

[1729] Saturn launched.

[1730] That was a surprise right after E3.

[1731] Go buy it.

[1732] What?

[1733] That's maybe a good reason for people to not try to go after a summer launch.

[1734] I'd like to think Nintendo could handle a surprise launch of something a little more elegantly.

[1735] Perhaps.

[1736] I mean, they're probably, like, by announcing it this early, showing it this early, they leave themselves a whole lot of options with what they could do.

[1737] You know, if it proves to be really, maybe they push it up to summer in one of the territories and they just roll it out.

[1738] Like, there is no way that they're going to have any competition for...

[1739] another two years at least.

[1740] Sony and Microsoft have no interest in meeting them to compete with that.

[1741] Nintendo pretty much has the field to themselves for the next couple of years.

[1742] And I feel like they're no stranger to announcing hardware that we don't see again for two years.

[1743] They have no problem showing something.

[1744] It's totally different than a vitality sensor.

[1745] But they showed the Wii two years before it came out.

[1746] It was like...

[1747] I don't think so.

[1748] They were talking about it.

[1749] It was called The Revolution.

[1750] Then at TGS, so that would have been September or October, they showed the Wiimote for the first time.

[1751] They showed the controller for the first time.

[1752] Then it was playable at E3, and then it rolled out in November.

[1753] That was about a year in change.

[1754] So about announced in October.

[1755] So it could be the same cycle here.

[1756] Announced in...

[1757] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[1758] If it's possible that next E3 would all be all the launch titles, if it was going to be a summer thing.

[1759] I mean, if they're going to have anything to show at E3 here for as, you know...

[1760] tight -lipped as they've been, and if this is going to be post -April 12 at the soonest, I expect tech demos this year.

[1761] I expect working title, working title, working title on absolutely everything.

[1762] There's no way a full game exists for that thing.

[1763] Pokemon HD working title.

[1764] Mario HD working title.

[1765] I expect totally Mario Galaxy HD.

[1766] That's the big reveal.

[1767] I don't think they'll do another Galaxy.

[1768] They already did two of those.

[1769] They'll just charge you for the ones they already make.

[1770] Are you talking about the same game in HD?

[1771] Well, they'll do one and two as an HD bundle.

[1772] Well, if we're lucky, this thing will just play old Wii games at higher resolution.

[1773] Who knows?

[1774] We'll see.

[1775] If you look at those emulators, the same assets, the way Nintendo designed them for the Wii because of the resolution, if there's a way they can just up -res it, it looks really nice.

[1776] It is certainly possible to render those games at higher resolution because people are doing it.

[1777] Vino would be better if...

[1778] if Nintendo could just charge you for them again.

[1779] Because that really makes a lot more sense.

[1780] Are you suggesting it with some sort of, like, electronic shop, maybe?

[1781] Possibly.

[1782] What if there's an unlock code to, like, you put your old one in, and then you have to buy, like, a $5 HD unlock code to play it?

[1783] Get me on the line.

[1784] Get Reggie on the phone.

[1785] I gotta go.

[1786] Do you have a phone on that iPad?

[1787] No. So this isn't that, I mean...

[1788] The 3DS got basically announced in the same fashion of just very, it was a press release kind of put out there.

[1789] Yeah, and in that case, they got ahead of the rumors getting out.

[1790] They just said all of a sudden, we're making a 3D handheld.

[1791] I don't think anybody had actually reported that stuff at that time.

[1792] They knew that they were already ramping up to produce the handheld for the test unit, so they knew that people were going to see a 3D display.

[1793] And so they just got ahead of it.

[1794] Yeah.

[1795] They kind of did the same thing here.

[1796] Nintendo has one more press conference.

[1797] I think it's next week in Japan to talk about stuff.

[1798] So it's possible there'll be a little more about it before.

[1799] But they haven't said anything about what it is except that it won't be 3D.

[1800] Mostly because they can't control the display.

[1801] Did they mention anything about the controller?

[1802] No. Nothing?

[1803] No. But it will be HD?

[1804] It sounds like all we know is it'll have buttons.

[1805] A sensor and a touch panel of some sort.

[1806] Or at least a display.

[1807] But I'd be surprised if it wasn't a touch panel.

[1808] And it will be HD, that's confirmed?

[1809] The system will?

[1810] Dude.

[1811] I wouldn't say confirmed.

[1812] It's impossible.

[1813] What's actually more, what we don't know, it'll definitely be HD, but it's whether they choose to, you know, right now, 360 and PS3 level hardware, you'd be making money day one, which is what Nintendo does with all their consoles.

[1814] Do they choose?

[1815] to go with that hardware and make money day one.

[1816] Take a loss.

[1817] No, this is take a loss.

[1818] You could get hardware that's more powerful now, and you'd still be making money, but they'd be making more money if they're using hardware from five years ago, and they're still going to be able to get ports of those HD games for the next two or three years that Sony and Microsoft.

[1819] are waiting to see what they do with their consoles.

[1820] So I think we mentioned this last podcast.

[1821] I think it was a really good point.

[1822] Do you think that they took a lesson from having such a unique control scheme and this time they're going to move towards being able to port stuff from the other systems more easily and not have to redesign?

[1823] My theory is this is going to be the hardcore console that people kind of wanted because they tapped out 80 million Wii units.

[1824] And so they took the casual as far as they could go.

[1825] But the casual is that they found out they're only going to buy...

[1826] Maybe one other game afterwards.

[1827] They didn't find a success as big as Wii Sports other than Wii Fit.

[1828] And so they could not get the casuals to buy the software, but the hardcore will buy the software.

[1829] So if they're acknowledged that Microsoft and Sony filed them down the motion path, with this one, if they take it back a notch, they know if they play to the hardcore, it doesn't matter how much the hardcore Nintendo fans bitched and moaned about the last five years.

[1830] They will come right back if they make the games that they want.

[1831] And I think they're in a position where...

[1832] They could play to the hardcore for the next two years, get some goodwill back, see what Sony and Microsoft decide to do, and then they just throw another curveball.

[1833] They just play to their base for the next couple of years.

[1834] And they make a red one.

[1835] Yes.

[1836] That's right.

[1837] Or blue.

[1838] I don't know.

[1839] It's like three years.

[1840] I don't want to speculate too much.

[1841] So what color is the new Nintendo platform?

[1842] No comment.

[1843] Base color.

[1844] That's the hardest thing.

[1845] Base color.

[1846] That's the hardest.

[1847] Base color.

[1848] Silver.

[1849] I didn't like those 3DS colors.

[1850] Silver?

[1851] Silver.

[1852] GameCube was silver.

[1853] No. Purple.

[1854] Not at launch.

[1855] It was purple.

[1856] Purple.

[1857] An ugly purple.

[1858] Silver didn't come out for a while.

[1859] I still have my custom painted GameCube.

[1860] Do you have your Panasonic DVD GameCube, whatever that thing was called?

[1861] Oh, no, I didn't get the Panasonic Q. Yes.

[1862] That thing was fucking sick.

[1863] That thing was crazy.

[1864] I really wanted to get one of those at the time.

[1865] When did the black GameCube come out?

[1866] That was a launch thing, wasn't it?

[1867] I'm pretty sure it launched purple and black.

[1868] Okay, I had a black one.

[1869] Yeah, the silver one came out a while afterward.

[1870] Silver one was ugly, too.

[1871] Yeah.

[1872] Can you get a different color Wii?

[1873] They have red ones?

[1874] Yeah.

[1875] Black ones.

[1876] Took a while, though.

[1877] I think they did a New Super Mario Bros. Wii bundle that's a red one, I think.

[1878] Maybe.

[1879] There was at least a red box for New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

[1880] Wiis are not to be seen.

[1881] the Wii is to be tucked into the odd corner of your entertainment center and then occasionally wake you up at night with the blinding blue glow.

[1882] I'm just curious to see what it'll look like.

[1883] Nintendo console designs are so weird.

[1884] I'm going to say the official new color is clear.

[1885] Oh, nuts.

[1886] To see the hardware.

[1887] It's the late 90s again, y 'all.

[1888] It's an iMac.

[1889] You can see their guts.

[1890] I used to have one of those phones that you could see the guts inside.

[1891] That was the worst.

[1892] That's awesome.

[1893] I was like, but that looked dope.

[1894] But would it have like a blue LED or something?

[1895] No, no, no. It wouldn't be an LED.

[1896] There would be like a small neon coil along inside.

[1897] Fuck yes.

[1898] Oh.

[1899] That's the dopest phone of 1997, son.

[1900] That's the worst period of consumer electronics, industrial design.

[1901] Throw it right against my Debbie Gibson poster.

[1902] I think I bought it at Spencer Gifts.

[1903] Clear plastic is so much worse than brushed metal or faux wood paneling or anything else that you can come up with.

[1904] I like faux wood paneling.

[1905] It's hard to think of a main console that's not white at this point.

[1906] It's also just weird to imagine we're playing a new console.

[1907] It's been a long time.

[1908] I'm ready.

[1909] I've been ready for it.

[1910] I mean, this kicks it off officially.

[1911] However this plays out determines the pace of when you see the other consoles.

[1912] Ugliest Nintendo console.

[1913] Ugliest?

[1914] N64.

[1915] Really?

[1916] Purple GameCube.

[1917] That is ugly.

[1918] I think it's cool.

[1919] I like the little handle.

[1920] I like the...

[1921] I think the colors were less than great.

[1922] How about the Pikachu N64?

[1923] Yeah, that's pretty rough.

[1924] The giant yellow thing.

[1925] But at least the Pikachu built on it.

[1926] At least it was smaller than the original N64.

[1927] Was it?

[1928] It was.

[1929] It was.

[1930] They shrunk it down for those weird Pikachu N64s.

[1931] Just that weird hump on the N64 and it had these little feet out in front like it was presenting to you.

[1932] It was just odd.

[1933] I think the Fat DS is the ugliest console.

[1934] Well, we're talking handhelds.

[1935] Let's talk consoles, because that's what we're talking about here.

[1936] I think the Super Famicom is the prettiest Nintendo console.

[1937] Virtual Boy.

[1938] That red and gold.

[1939] Virtual Boy is a Super Famicom.

[1940] That's the Famicom.

[1941] Oh.

[1942] Yeah.

[1943] Super Famicom's got nice curves.

[1944] I forget what's Super Famicom.

[1945] Oh, Super Famicom's super rounded, right?

[1946] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1947] It's like a Super NES, but sleek.

[1948] He's saying that's the best.

[1949] SNES had purple buttons on it, too, in America.

[1950] So why does Nintendo like purple?

[1951] Nintendo does go crazy for purple.

[1952] SNES doesn't age well.

[1953] Nothing more depressing than a yellow SNES.

[1954] Oxidizing plastic notwithstanding, it was never a nice looking SNES?

[1955] Yeah.

[1956] Was the Japanese one different?

[1957] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[1958] The Super Famicom looks completely different.

[1959] What's the color scheme?

[1960] It's all gray, basically.

[1961] But it had like a...

[1962] God, what were the colors?

[1963] It was like blue, green, red, and yellow motif, and the face buttons on the controller were all four of those colors instead of just purple.

[1964] And the logo had that on the console, and it was a nice, sleek, curved design.

[1965] I used to ogle that thing in the Nintendo Power so much.

[1966] I liked that the GameCube had a handle.

[1967] I like the lunchbox aesthetic.

[1968] Just because?

[1969] Yeah.

[1970] What do you do with that?

[1971] Just because it's so stupid.

[1972] I like it because it stores nicely now.

[1973] Once it's off your shelf, it stores very neat in the closet.

[1974] But you're never going to skip down the hall swinging your arms side to side.

[1975] But all it has to do is make a good video.

[1976] All it has to do is evoke that.

[1977] That's the only point of that handle.

[1978] It's not that you're actually going to pick it up by the handle and take it everywhere with you.

[1979] I've used the handle functionally to bring it places.

[1980] You just have to bring it to the studio and stuff.

[1981] I would use the handle.

[1982] It's okay.

[1983] That's fair.

[1984] Yeah.

[1985] It was clean.

[1986] Clean and sharp, but I appreciate that.

[1987] Yeah.

[1988] I miss the days of non -slot loading disk drives as well.

[1989] Yeah, fuck it.

[1990] I want to put something on a spindle.

[1991] Have you ever put a GameCube game into your Wii?

[1992] God, no. I don't even know how to do that.

[1993] You don't know where to put it.

[1994] I've never done it.

[1995] I've never done it because I'm terrified of it.

[1996] I'm terrified of it.

[1997] Just get lost in there.

[1998] It's a neat snack.

[1999] It actually eats it.

[2000] I'm looking, and I'm like, I'm just never going to get this disc back, right?

[2001] Like, I'm going to try and put this in, and it's going to go.

[2002] Imagine if it got stuck.

[2003] How would you get it out?

[2004] And I'll hear that drive noise, that.

[2005] Click, click, click.

[2006] Did you hear some motor?

[2007] Just sort of like.

[2008] Nope.

[2009] Hold on.

[2010] Did my wee just laugh?

[2011] No. It's stuck.

[2012] It's eaten my copy.

[2013] I don't think I've ever played...

[2014] I've put a GameCube disc in there, but I don't know if I've ever played a GameCube game on my...

[2015] That's a scary proposition to me. What GameCube game would I want to go back and play?

[2016] So how far back do you expect Nintendo to go for backwards?

[2017] Let's just...

[2018] We're full -blown speculation here.

[2019] One of the reports said that it wouldn't maintain GameCube and Wii functionality.

[2020] Actually, what I'm curious about is what storage unit they go with.

[2021] Is it going to be a Blu -ray thing?

[2022] No way.

[2023] Or do they go with something else?

[2024] I can't imagine them making that joke.

[2025] You know what?

[2026] If we're going to say...

[2027] But they're third parties.

[2028] They've got to have a high -definition disc.

[2029] Nintendo has long aboard the slow -loading disc format, so if they can do anything to get away from that, I think they will.

[2030] Load times are like anathema to the Nintendo experience.

[2031] I'm just going to throw it out of here.

[2032] Yeah, exactly.

[2033] If it's the fucking 90s again, carts.

[2034] Not carts carts, but the thing they're doing with the NGP.

[2035] You can see something along those lines.

[2036] Some kind of proprietary Flash format or something.

[2037] I mean, but effectively solid state media.

[2038] Not ROMs per se, but yeah.

[2039] Think it'll have an Ethernet port on it?

[2040] Probably not.

[2041] No comment.

[2042] I mean, they crossed that bridge already, right?

[2043] Cut it off.

[2044] Yeah, there's not one on the Wii, right?

[2045] Yeah, there's not.

[2046] Nope.

[2047] That's the thing.

[2048] Weefy.

[2049] A couple of USB 3 .0 ports on it.

[2050] That'd be cool.

[2051] You can do some cool stuff with that.

[2052] If that ever gets ratified as a standard.

[2053] Completely wireless controllers.

[2054] If it ever gets actually implemented.

[2055] No charging or...

[2056] Probably not.

[2057] Actually, it was.

[2058] Chris Kohler wrote a story on Wired this week making a good argument why the touchscreen makes the most sense because Nintendo has a history of presenting an idea and then pulling back or canceling projects because they want to wait for the next one to differentiate.

[2059] Like how they canceled Star Fox 2 after it was done because they didn't want to promote polygonal games on the SNES because they wanted that to be part of an N64 thing.

[2060] And then they made a big deal about...

[2061] connectivity between the Wii and the DS early in the Wii's life, and then just dropped it.

[2062] No, they were going to do it for DS.

[2063] Remember, you were going to be able to download DS games through your Wii.

[2064] Those games were going to talk to each other.

[2065] The only game that used Wii...

[2066] I'm sorry.

[2067] Well, they had GBA and GameCube connectivity as well.

[2068] They dropped that quickly, but the reason it was going to work better with...

[2069] Wii and DS was it's all wireless.

[2070] The whole problem with the GBA stuff was...

[2071] There was one game.

[2072] It was a Pokemon battle game where you could pick the moves on the DS.

[2073] But Kohler's argument was that they dropped that because the motion stuff was cool enough.

[2074] If they wanted to do connectivity, save it for the next console so that it makes an actual tangible difference in what you're doing with the gameplay.

[2075] It adds a little credence to the idea that you would use your DS as a controller.

[2076] What if the 3DS is a prerequisite for using this console?

[2077] Or if it's not a prerequisite, what if it's optional?

[2078] Or at least, yeah, strongly encouraged.

[2079] What if you could go buy a console, use your DS as the controller, but if you want the HD controller, maybe it'd have a nicer touch display.

[2080] It does have the analog stick on it now.

[2081] There is an opportunity where that could be your controller, but that you could just buy a nicer one.

[2082] You could play your game at home with your NICE controller and then take that experience on the go with your DS, and it's all connected from day one.

[2083] They just need to make some fucking games, dog.

[2084] What happens to Skyward Sword?

[2085] Wee's Swan Song, I guess.

[2086] They're not going to push it until fall 2012.

[2087] No, that has to be out this year.

[2088] It was supposed to be out last year.

[2089] They can't keep holding that.

[2090] I've heard this before.

[2091] I think it was during the last Zelda game.

[2092] It would be completely fucking insane if that game didn't come out this year.

[2093] But on the new console, the levels are flipped.

[2094] You've got to give them something else.

[2095] You've got to give the people that bought the hardcore players, because there's nothing else.

[2096] They have to launch something.

[2097] They have to put out a tentpole this year.

[2098] At this point, you give them Skyward Sword, and then you just dump the Wii as a machine, and everything just goes into Wii 2 for next year.

[2099] You 99 buck the Wii.

[2100] You do.

[2101] And I bet that pushes them over $100 million eventually.

[2102] If you could buy your family a $79 Wii Sports machine.

[2103] I just don't know how Nintendo gear shifts from the five years of super casual Nintendo kind of back into the, you know, they basically need to come back into, you know, SNES era hit making, third party.

[2104] Man, those developers never went anywhere, though.

[2105] Like, people are lifers at Nintendo, so all those guys...

[2106] But they haven't been...

[2107] But the output hasn't been...

[2108] You know, yeah, I agree that actually getting back into that could be...

[2109] Like, Kid Icarus is an interesting experiment in getting some of that together.

[2110] Right.

[2111] And maybe they're getting...

[2112] Maybe you'll see some of those designers doing that stuff on 3DS first as they're sort of, like, getting back into the mode of making...

[2113] But yeah, like...

[2114] But even just, like, that third party...

[2115] Traditional action games have changed a lot since Nintendo is making more than just, like...

[2116] a Mario game every couple of years.

[2117] And they are going to need that third -party support that they have not really had the same level of since the 90s.

[2118] And if they want third -party support and they're making an HD console, that means that the controller has to have comparable buttons to everything else.

[2119] Yeah, it's got to be port -friendly.

[2120] Does that mean dual analog sticks on whatever you got?

[2121] Maybe.

[2122] I mean, at least...

[2123] Or at least an analog stick and a touchscreen so you can kind of mimic another analog stick.

[2124] DualShock with a screen in the middle.

[2125] That's what it's going to be.

[2126] Well, it's going to be like a 3DS, basically.

[2127] Yeah, with just one screen.

[2128] Yeah.

[2129] That's it.

[2130] I'm down with this 3DS controller.

[2131] I can imagine that, and I can imagine the 3DS.

[2132] It's got the accelerometer.

[2133] Hold on.

[2134] You're saying it's going to be a Game Boy?

[2135] With the new system?

[2136] Yeah.

[2137] So they'll include a Game Boy with the new system?

[2138] Basically.

[2139] Well, no, it'll have an analog screen.

[2140] Game Boy Advance.

[2141] I don't know.

[2142] With an analog stick.

[2143] GBA SP.

[2144] No, because it's a touchscreen.

[2145] Game Boy Micro.

[2146] Jam a NES Max and then SP together.

[2147] My prediction, here's my one prediction for this thing.

[2148] We can't really nail down anything.

[2149] Oh, no, no. This is fun times.

[2150] Here's my one prediction.

[2151] Proprietary HDMI port.

[2152] on it.

[2153] So you can't just plug a regular HDMI cable.

[2154] You're going to have to plug some kind of Nintendo proprietary port that has a regular HDMI on the back end, but on the Nintendo end.

[2155] It'll be the same plug that they've used since the SNES.

[2156] They'll keep using that same plug.

[2157] An HD machine with composite cables bundled in the box.

[2158] Who's to say they'll support HDMI at all?

[2159] They might just stick with components.

[2160] It's funny, but that's what the PS3 did, right?

[2161] Yeah.

[2162] Yeah, it's so sad.

[2163] Well, no, because you can buy it off -the -shelf HDMI cable and stick it in your PS3.

[2164] Right, but you need to buy a cable.

[2165] But they still come with composite cables.

[2166] What you're talking about is a proprietary connector that goes into the console.

[2167] That's what I'm guessing.

[2168] Requiring you to buy a cable from...

[2169] Or it'll be like mini -HDMI, which might as well just be proprietary.

[2170] Someone will come up with a connector.

[2171] Maybe it'll be HD -based.

[2172] They just don't like making it easy.

[2173] And it'll do 480p, and they'll say, HD, motherfucker.

[2174] Check it out.

[2175] Yeah, it's just an HDMI cable.

[2176] It's not actually a higher resolution.

[2177] That's not HD.

[2178] Tell me about it.

[2179] It's ED.

[2180] Enhanced dysfunction.

[2181] Too young for that.

[2182] What's going on at Activision, Patrick?

[2183] Sounds like all sorts of crazy shit.

[2184] Yeah, I published some excerpts from a couple of memos.

[2185] I'd gotten a couple months back.

[2186] There was nothing totally, like, revelatory in them.

[2187] But the Call of Duty stuff was kind of interesting about how pretty much after the Infinity Ward stuff happened, everyone kind of asked themselves, or it was a common question of, you know, isn't Call of Duty essentially becoming like what Guitar Hero was?

[2188] Like, has a real big spike.

[2189] Yeah.

[2190] And we're ringing it for everything it's worth.

[2191] And then you just, you know, sort of.

[2192] rang it for all it's worth yeah and so in this activation memo there was actually like it's it was laid out as a question and answer and there was actually a question that said you know aren't we doing to call of duty what we've you know which is great that those questions are at least somebody even if Yeah, and it's in this memo that's presented by an executive whose memo speak is very bizarre because they're trying to be more honest than they are in their public statements, but also they're still doing PR to their thousands of employees.

[2193] Well, they also have to know that shit's going to get out at some point.

[2194] Yeah, but it is good to see that they were asking, but yeah, essentially their logic was, well, it hasn't happened yet.

[2195] In summary, the memo hasn't happened yet.

[2196] Which seems to be, to not be too much of a dick, the kind of Activision way.

[2197] It is.

[2198] To their credit, they said the one differentiating factor is that it's a shooter.

[2199] And the first -person games...

[2200] We know that.

[2201] We know it's a shooter.

[2202] That other game?

[2203] That was not a shooter.

[2204] I think.

[2205] I'm pretty sure.

[2206] I have piles of research on my desk that heavily suggests that Guitar Hero was not confirmed, but it is suggested.

[2207] My assistant tells me that this game is clearly...

[2208] And she's got young kids.

[2209] A shooter.

[2210] Yeah.

[2211] Brought in Timmy.

[2212] Timmy said it is not...

[2213] Guitar Hero is not a shooter.

[2214] Probably not a shooter.

[2215] Most definitely, probably not.

[2216] In all fairness, though, what it was was the leading edge of a very short -lived bubble.

[2217] Guitar Hero.

[2218] Yeah.

[2219] I mean, Rhythm Games in general had a lot.

[2220] Clearly, looking back, hindsight being 20 -20, they had a pretty short shelf life.

[2221] But first -person shooters have been around, and they will continue to be around.

[2222] I'm not saying that Call of Duty or even Modern Military will be around forever, but at least they have some reason to think that this style of game will be popular in perpetuity.

[2223] I don't think we're the only ones feeling a little FPS fatigue right now.

[2224] Yes, I totally agree with you.

[2225] I need to play something else.

[2226] And even just playing Portal 2, first person, but wildly didn't feel the fatigue that I felt with...

[2227] It's not a first person shooter.

[2228] I know, but still.

[2229] It's a first person game.

[2230] I guess my point is that I'm tired of the first person shooters being made.

[2231] I'm not tired of the first person perspective in any respect.

[2232] Well, I mean, part of the problem is...

[2233] They all just blend together.

[2234] And this is probably something that, you know...

[2235] very likely wouldn't make it into, would not hove its way into an Activision executive's perspective, is how many other games that are coming out that are making Call of Duty feel older just by existing?

[2236] How many games are taking notes from Call of Duty so directly?

[2237] that it's making you more tired of Call of Duty without there even being more.

[2238] Yeah, Call of Duty might not be getting lesser in quality necessarily, but because you're seeing all that stuff scattered and everything else by virtue of that, and that time that Call of Duty comes around, it's like, eh.

[2239] Yeah, they can't just like, we have a new story set in the Call of Duty universe with the same mechanics.

[2240] It's like, damn, I'm fucking tired of this.

[2241] If they announce Modern Warfare 3 with just all the same tropes, I don't see how that's...

[2242] It'll sell.

[2243] It'll sell, but...

[2244] I don't know, I could see the beginning of the end.

[2245] And especially since they have so much to fucking prove right now with the new and improved Infinity Ward.

[2246] Yeah, this is the make or break year for that franchise.

[2247] Yeah.

[2248] But I guess the question is, even if Call of Duty starts to go on a downhill slant, what replaces it?

[2249] I don't know.

[2250] What's Respawn up to?

[2251] I don't know.

[2252] I mean, because fundamentally what made Modern Warfare such a, I hate the term game changer, but it was because the multiplayer was so different.

[2253] At this point, no one since Modern Warfare has even attempted to do anything other than just ape what Modern Warfare did.

[2254] I keep waiting for someone to come in and just be brave enough rather than say, well, it's easier just to do Modern Warfare.

[2255] Let's do multiplayer.

[2256] Well, I feel like we're still going through the process of, hey, this was a pretty revolutionary thing that got implemented in the multiplayer.

[2257] You're talking about the perk and persistence.

[2258] The perk and the persistence.

[2259] RPGing the multiplayer aspect.

[2260] I think we're still in the phase of seeing that applied to non -FPS genre multiplayer.

[2261] We're still seeing that sort of persistence.

[2262] And there's value in that.

[2263] It absolutely does extend the life of a multiplayer experience and give you some greater sense of investment in it.

[2264] And you're doing that in racing games.

[2265] Yeah, I don't think we'll turn around from that.

[2266] No, no, no. But now it's the standard, so it's not anything.

[2267] What I'm saying is I don't think it's quite the standard.

[2268] We were definitely reaching the point where if you see it in FPS, you go, whatever.

[2269] But if you see it in a non -FPS, it's still like, oh, that's kind of cool.

[2270] That'll make this more fun to keep going, blah, blah, blah.

[2271] It still hasn't become.

[2272] just industry -wide standard.

[2273] It's pretty close.

[2274] We're getting there.

[2275] We're getting there, but I think that's still a year off.

[2276] I read some interesting quotes from Gabe Newell that I am heavily paraphrasing here.

[2277] Is this a single -player thing?

[2278] Well, no, no. Although, is that on your list?

[2279] Because, dude, we should totally talk about that.

[2280] It was something to the effect of that role -playing is no longer like, to use a food analogy, it's no longer a meal.

[2281] It's basically a sauce.

[2282] that you add to other kinds of meals, you know?

[2283] Like the, I think he was specifically talking about like Bioware and stuff.

[2284] Like this is going to break Vinny's heart, you know, but he's basically saying that like that style of sweeping epic role -playing game is done.

[2285] Like purely for, I guess, like financial reasons, you know, they're so expensive to make and the returns are diminishing.

[2286] So like those elements are better sprinkled on like quicker and more accessible sorts of experiences where they can enrich.

[2287] Like shooters.

[2288] Yeah, totally.

[2289] Like genres that more people are more willing to play.

[2290] Like in Borderlands.

[2291] Right, right.

[2292] I mean, I think if there's one thing that we can all take away from this, having all been doing it for years, is nothing's ever done.

[2293] Everything comes in a cycle and a wave.

[2294] I guess just waiting to see what is that thing.

[2295] I'm curious if the rumors, if you assume the rumors of Bungie's working on sort of...

[2296] an online MMO -ish shooter thing and that Blizzard's Titan project is also something like that, it kind of seems like maybe the space is moving from...

[2297] The lesson from Modern Warfare is persistence is important.

[2298] How can we make persistence a larger part of the entire experience?

[2299] And if online...

[2300] Like, online MMO shooters should be cool.

[2301] Like, Planetside was a cool idea even if the game didn't work that well.

[2302] And I think you have stuff like Need for Speed, like...

[2303] Kind of blending that online -offline experience into kind of something.

[2304] I think you'll see more and more of that.

[2305] But, you know, everybody gets bored of something eventually.

[2306] I think we'll see the grand epic role -playing game come back.

[2307] It'll start.

[2308] I mean, look, we're playing adventure games.

[2309] We're playing StarCraft.

[2310] You can't count as John Rao.

[2311] You just got to find someone to make it.

[2312] The business model works.

[2313] It's got to be cheaper and faster.

[2314] Investor games, they found a better way to make them a profit.

[2315] I think you'll see that happen across the board.

[2316] I think first -person shooters will do the same thing.

[2317] They'll all get tired of it.

[2318] Somebody will turn the switch a little bit to something else, and we'll keep doing it.

[2319] But gamers are the most fickle crowd there is.

[2320] Things come in and out of fashion very quickly.

[2321] You're not wrong about that.

[2322] And frankly...

[2323] Speaking about adventure games, they've been back longer than they were gone at this point.

[2324] Like there was the heyday in the late 90s and then early aughts, everything bottomed out.

[2325] But then it was only a couple years after that that Telltale was up in operation and cranking out their episodic adventure games.

[2326] And even that whole time, LucasArts was trying to reboot Sam Max like two or three times.

[2327] But in non -adventure game formats.

[2328] doing it badly yeah the thing I'm kind of curious about is like Starcraft obviously doing pretty well right sold okay uh RTS games didn't really start flooding the market.

[2329] I mean, some different kinds of tower defense stuff have come out.

[2330] That seems to be the angle people are going with.

[2331] We want, again, with that persistence of there's online stuff and stuff like that.

[2332] But it's that old school, late 90s base building RTS.

[2333] Starcraft style, not so much.

[2334] More like Trench and the other things we're seeing where it's like, well, you know.

[2335] Even the Relic stuff started moving toward a hero model without a lot of building an economy.

[2336] More of a strategic RPG.

[2337] than a...

[2338] I don't know.

[2339] StarCraft is a weird case because they built that intentionally as an inaccessible, highly, highly competitive sport -like activity.

[2340] Yeah, I mean, StarCraft doesn't even represent a genre.

[2341] It represents fucking StarCraft.

[2342] Unless you happen to be the license holder of StarCraft, I don't think you can really cash in on StarCraft.

[2343] Even if you're Command & Conquer?

[2344] Apparently, even if you're Command & Conquer.

[2345] Although I guess there's smoke out there that they're working on something.

[2346] Yeah, they are working on a new one.

[2347] It's so weird.

[2348] I feel like the ashes of the studio ignited and there's something smoldering somewhere, you know?

[2349] It's like from the ruins.

[2350] The coals weren't entirely dead.

[2351] Somebody threw a lit butt into a trash can.

[2352] Well, like a breeze came by, right?

[2353] And it was just like...

[2354] Just enough.

[2355] I think we could do this again.

[2356] But it hasn't even been dead that long.

[2357] No, the Embers.

[2358] Oh, a game came out, what, 4 came out last year?

[2359] Yeah.

[2360] God, was that it?

[2361] Let's not talk about that.

[2362] Okay.

[2363] Was it really 2010?

[2364] That was last year, yes.

[2365] Fuck.

[2366] Yeah.

[2367] So your takeaway from this whole Activision thing was it's a first -person shooter.

[2368] First -person shooters are popular.

[2369] Yeah, they're popular.

[2370] This one's still popular.

[2371] We're going to keep making them.

[2372] And when this one isn't popular...

[2373] Hopefully we got something else.

[2374] That's the thing.

[2375] We'll worry about that then.

[2376] Tony Hawk.

[2377] Matt mentioned in the memo is they went through their things that they're looking towards you after, and a big one was Bungie's next thing.

[2378] I think they're looking possibly as that to be their transition, even though that's not their IP.

[2379] Yeah, who's to say what their business terms are on that one?

[2380] They're going to position that as, you know, I'm sure the terms are very favorable toward them, even if they don't own the IP.

[2381] That's something they can move over towards even if they don't have something wholly owned to go to yet.

[2382] I wonder if sometimes like they just – big companies like that, like the EAs and Activision, big publishers are – when things start getting stale are looking for people to break a genre even if they have no interest in it at all.

[2383] Even if it's like a competing company to be like, great.

[2384] You just opened up a new market, like Rhythm Games or something like that.

[2385] We can get into that.

[2386] We can start making new games in that channel.

[2387] Even if they're not making money from it initially, I wonder if it's just something like kind of sweat on the brow.

[2388] Like, we weren't really sure where we were going to go, but this whole modern military thing looks good.

[2389] We can make a lot of money for that for five years.

[2390] Thank you guys for kind of paving the way on there.

[2391] I mean, nobody knows.

[2392] Nobody's got a crystal ball.

[2393] I mean, if we in this room could tell you the next big thing.

[2394] We do it.

[2395] I'd sell that information.

[2396] We wouldn't be here right now.

[2397] We'd be rolling in piles of money.

[2398] Piles of money, next big thing.

[2399] I've heard that.

[2400] Those are always big, actually, it turns out.

[2401] French, next big thing, piles of money.

[2402] That might be a good segue into the Valve stuff.

[2403] Yeah.

[2404] I think Gabe Newell apparently knows what the next big thing is.

[2405] Knives.

[2406] Survivalism.

[2407] Jeff Keighley launched an iPad app.

[2408] last week, final hours of Portal 2, and there's a lot of nuggets about sort of what Valve is thinking about going forward, and one of them was that he, again, paraphrasing, but basically said that Portal 2 could very well be Valve's last single -player solitary experience.

[2409] I wasn't really expanding on what that means, but it sounds like they're very much thinking that in some capacity you will always be connected.

[2410] to other players, but what that means exactly.

[2411] I don't think that the logical conclusion is that, well, all their games are co -op.

[2412] Or even all of their games have a...

[2413] I think they're thinking a couple levels above that.

[2414] They just want players to influence your experience.

[2415] They're thinking about the top level.

[2416] You know what level that is?

[2417] Hats.

[2418] That is right up there on the top.

[2419] It's very top.

[2420] It's the hats.

[2421] God, they love the hats.

[2422] I can't wear hats.

[2423] I can't wear hats either.

[2424] It's too big.

[2425] I bought a straw hat.

[2426] Did you?

[2427] In Mexico.

[2428] Was it the kind that has the finished edges on it?

[2429] No, it was a little cleaner than that.

[2430] I think they called them sombreros.

[2431] We did talk them down a little bit, though.

[2432] Oh, you got to haggle.

[2433] Talk down a hat.

[2434] They gave us a beautiful deal in their words.

[2435] They will always give you the white man's price when you first show up.

[2436] They're like, no, get out of my face with that.

[2437] Less than that.

[2438] That's too much.

[2439] Straw hats, the future.

[2440] Get what you can.

[2441] So you're basically saying Half -Life MMO.

[2442] Great.

[2443] Yes.

[2444] Announced here.

[2445] Headline.

[2446] Breaking.

[2447] Breaking.

[2448] God, you know what?

[2449] I think they could release Half -Life branded line of farts and people would be so excited about some new goddamn Half -Life content of any kind.

[2450] This one smells like...

[2451] It was weird because all the Portal stuff, there were people super excited about Portal, but there were people like...

[2452] okay, we'll play this until we get another Half -Life.

[2453] Is there any fucking Half -Life in here?

[2454] What about Half -Life Episode 3?

[2455] What about Half -Life 3?

[2456] The minute that people found that little image of the G -Man on that Portal 2 countdown page, they forgot that Portal 2 was coming out, and they were just like, oh my god!

[2457] Just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just complete meltdown, complete refocus.

[2458] Like, I will trade in this entire new game for, like, two sentences about what you're doing with this other thing.

[2459] Anything, anything at all.

[2460] When they finally drop that bomb, it's just gonna...

[2461] And it's weird because, again, it has now been longer since the first wait.

[2462] Since the wait from Half -Life to Half -Life 2.

[2463] Episode 2.

[2464] Okay, maybe not to the episodes, but to the game.

[2465] To Half -Life 2.

[2466] You kind of have to consider the episodes, given that that was supposed to be Half -Life 3, 1, 2, and 3, and then that kind of went off the rails.

[2467] Yeah.

[2468] Yeah, it's only been three years and changed since...

[2469] Since Episode 2.

[2470] Since any playable product called Half -Life was out.

[2471] Fair enough.

[2472] But so the other thing, I don't know if you got this or not, but didn't he also mention that they are working on some, like, super top -secret, top -level Skunkworks project of his own?

[2473] No, I read that that was, like, sort of the...

[2474] F -Stop was before Portal became...

[2475] That was, like, he aborted...

[2476] Portal 2, yeah.

[2477] It's a brilliant gameplay mechanic that they won't talk about, but it is not in Portal 2.

[2478] Hmm, I read that...

[2479] There's a lot of stuff in there.

[2480] I'm a little concerned about parroting a bunch of stuff I read on a message board.

[2481] I didn't see this in an actual news story, so I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I saw message board chatter was that there was a repeatable time mechanic, like Braid style, sort of creating multiple instances of yourself.

[2482] But I thought I also read that he has some crazy five -year project going on.

[2483] Would not be surprised.

[2484] Just buy the app, I guess, if you want to know more.

[2485] Half -Life 3.

[2486] There was some quote from Newell a year ago that said, over the next couple of years, we'll announce things that you would not have been able to predict about the company.

[2487] And we haven't gotten to that point.

[2488] Portal 2, you were going to make that.

[2489] Dota I didn't exactly expect, but I'll be curious to see what comes.

[2490] What comes after that?

[2491] They're not just sitting there and counting Steam money.

[2492] They've been so low -key for the last couple of years, post -OrangeBox.

[2493] I mean, there was Left 4 Dead, but those were, what was that, TurtleBox?

[2494] No, TurtleRock.

[2495] The project that they came into.

[2496] But whatever Valve proper has been working on, they've been doing more than Portal 2.

[2497] And I think it's possible.

[2498] Hopefully we're at a point where we'll see a lot.

[2499] I'm just being...

[2500] You think we're turning a corner on Valve?

[2501] I mean, I just want to say that because I hope it's true.

[2502] I actually have no evidence or...

[2503] I would just love to be at E3 and there was two Valve projects announced.

[2504] That'd be real nice.

[2505] This is a big Valve booth.

[2506] Oh, yeah.

[2507] One of those projects is Steam 2.

[2508] Damn it.

[2509] We've created the sequel to Steam, you guys.

[2510] Episode 1.

[2511] Not backwards compatible.

[2512] That's right.

[2513] You can only have one or the other.

[2514] That's right.

[2515] We're going to need you to upgrade your account to Steam 2.

[2516] You're going to lose all your shit for Steam 1.

[2517] But you can rebuy Metro 2033 on Steam 2.

[2518] All the stuff for Steam 1 is available in Steam 2.

[2519] Just pay the corkage fee and we'll bring it over for you.

[2520] Is my WiiWare stuff going to transfer it to the Nintendo machine?

[2521] Probably not.

[2522] I'm still waiting for them to make good on DSiWare transfer it over.

[2523] I'm still waiting for them to make good on DSiWare.

[2524] Boom.

[2525] Good finger gun.

[2526] Yeah.

[2527] Oh, what else is going on there?

[2528] So canceling handhelds.

[2529] Yeah.

[2530] There's more word that – DS Lite.

[2531] Yeah, DS Lite.

[2532] Apparently – well, Nintendo's statement to me was more just like, well, you'll be able to buy them in steady quantities going forward.

[2533] They're not going to run out, which is basically them saying, yes, we've ended production, but – There are plenty out there.

[2534] Not a lot of people are buying DS Lite.

[2535] You've got a ton of those things.

[2536] It's not like they're going anywhere if you wanted one.

[2537] Because that's already – I mean you're talking like – Because there's a DS Lite.

[2538] That's three revisions back.

[2539] DSi.

[2540] DSi XL.

[2541] 3DS.

[2542] And then 3DS.

[2543] So at this point, if you want a DS Lite, it's – And this is anecdotal entirely, but I was in a number of electronic stores over the weekend, and 3DSs are out there.

[2544] You don't need to go too far to find yourself.

[2545] They undersold.

[2546] Yeah.

[2547] They didn't hit their $4 million projection.

[2548] Oh, didn't they?

[2549] They got to $3 .61 million, which they said...

[2550] They landed partially on the earthquake.

[2551] They said that people were just kind of...

[2552] That happened around that time, and then people just sort of decided we don't want to buy things, or 3DSs are not what we need to spend our money on right now.

[2553] Yeah, I could see in Japan that...

[2554] Well, whatever.

[2555] It was out for fucking months in Japan.

[2556] Yeah.

[2557] If you're saying people outside of Japan were bummed about the earthquake and didn't want to buy 3DSs, that's maybe a little bit of a stretch, Nintendo.

[2558] And then, yeah, the PSP Go canceled in Japan but not in North America.

[2559] What?

[2560] Yeah.

[2561] They're still producing them for North America but not for Japan.

[2562] But in Japan.

[2563] One would assume, yes, that is the case.

[2564] You know what's possible with that is completely off -base speculation, but it's that if they're only – going to release the NGP in one territory this year that you would close down production.

[2565] You would let the PSP Go's go out of stock in Japan because you're going to be releasing the NGP in Japan this year.

[2566] You'll close down PSP Go production for America later because it's not going to launch later this year in America.

[2567] That would be my interpretation.

[2568] But people still aren't buying the PSP Go, so nope.

[2569] No go.

[2570] No go, PSP Go.

[2571] Nicely done.

[2572] You're finding your pace here really quickly, Patrick.

[2573] I'm pretty impressed.

[2574] I wrote that down in my notebook.

[2575] That's in the Moleskine.

[2576] That's right there.

[2577] Hopefully joke comes up.

[2578] You think these are notes?

[2579] These are all just bad jokes.

[2580] Wait for applause?

[2581] Yeah.

[2582] Okay.

[2583] We don't have a soundboard in here?

[2584] Applause break.

[2585] Applause break.

[2586] Not yet.

[2587] Knock on wood.

[2588] I can't tell if that means you want one or don't want one.

[2589] Yeah, you think you're going to get such a bad place?

[2590] Yeah.

[2591] So the site goes down for a whole week.

[2592] Then we've got to resort to a soundboard.

[2593] Soundboard.

[2594] Big applause.

[2595] There's got to be an iPad app with sounds.

[2596] Oh, I bet.

[2597] Oh, God.

[2598] We were almost there.

[2599] Anything else happen with the news?

[2600] We came close.

[2601] We already kind of did PlayStation Network.

[2602] That shit's down.

[2603] You want to talk a little bit about the why?

[2604] Yeah, I guess we're on through the...

[2605] The speculation on it.

[2606] So PSN went down last week.

[2607] Yes.

[2608] Right around this...

[2609] Actually, I think on Thursday.

[2610] That's when we realized we weren't going to be able to do Mortal Kombat on PSN.

[2611] Oh, right, yeah.

[2612] For TNT.

[2613] And then...

[2614] At that point, PlayStation Europe had put up a short...

[2615] statement saying that they blamed it on outside interference because as a result of GeoHot, that's the hacker's name, right?

[2616] George Hots.

[2617] Yeah, the guy who hacked the Blu -ray access code.

[2618] So much love that I found out that GeoHot is just short for George Hots.

[2619] I thought it was some bullshit.

[2620] You didn't know that?

[2621] No, because I heard people talk about GeoHot.

[2622] Because it sounds like Zero Cool or something.

[2623] Yeah, it definitely sounds like internet abbreviated nonsense.

[2624] Something from an IRC channel in the 90s.

[2625] Yes, GeoHot sounds like someone's fucking BBS handle for sure.

[2626] I've got to collect the GeoHot.

[2627] You want to trade the GeoHot for Pikachu?

[2628] The first article that I read that said GeoHot, real name George Hots, I'm like, what?

[2629] Really?

[2630] That's awesome.

[2631] That makes me love the name GeoHot.

[2632] Yeah, I don't even know if I have to quote that in stories because you've already said Geohot by the time you said George.

[2633] Yeah, so anyway, so because of that lawsuit, which ended up getting settled amicably between the two, Anonymous sort of declared, we're going to hack Sony.

[2634] Yeah.

[2635] So the initial response, at least Sony kind of was like kind of nudging, yo, those guys did it.

[2636] And Anonymous quickly said, no, no, we didn't.

[2637] Oh, yeah?

[2638] They're just...

[2639] Sony's bad.

[2640] Their servers are terrible.

[2641] So then we pretty much have heard nothing about it since.

[2642] It's been down all weekend long.

[2643] So Anonymous usually takes full credit when they bust shit up, right?

[2644] Yeah, I mean, it's hard to take the credibility of a hacker group, but usually they want to take credit for something like that.

[2645] I mean, it's pretty big to take it down for, at this point, four or five days, possibly longer.

[2646] So it doesn't sound like it's that.

[2647] And then pretty much Sony's been just on lockdown mode ever since.

[2648] You can access...

[2649] because that doesn't go through the login.

[2650] And we talked about the other stuff earlier that doesn't use the login sort of infrastructure.

[2651] But it kind of seems like there's something tied to that login and your account information.

[2652] But the scary thing is that today there was someone, it was a PC World asked a Sony Japan spokesperson like, so is my credit card stuff safe?

[2653] And they were like, we don't know yet.

[2654] Which is not a great answer that we'll get back to you on your credit card information getting compromised because we're not.

[2655] We're not sure.

[2656] Ryan, you just put your stuff back in, didn't you?

[2657] Was it an offer of it?

[2658] Or was that just that new PS3?

[2659] We had to enter your credit card.

[2660] We had to buy something recently, and it wasn't stored.

[2661] Oh, no, that's just because I had deauthorized all of it.

[2662] Because I had hit my max like five PS3s authorized to use my PSN account.

[2663] Oh, from like work stuff?

[2664] Yeah, just from, yeah.

[2665] Oh, so you just had to re - So I was able to get Sony to, I guess they won't normally do this, but.

[2666] They weren't able to...

[2667] Wink, wink.

[2668] Yeah, a little bit of that.

[2669] So you're saying you took down...

[2670] This was weeks and weeks ago.

[2671] Yeah, it's back up.

[2672] Everything's back up and fresh for the picking.

[2673] Damn it.

[2674] That was me. I did that.

[2675] Sorry, guys.

[2676] No, I want to be able to.

[2677] Again, I'm a PlayStation Plus member, motherfuckers.

[2678] I want that shit working.

[2679] I want uptime.

[2680] I want uptime, and I also want some sort of recompense for this crazy downtime.

[2681] Yeah, well, that's assuming that it comes up anytime soon.

[2682] You're ready.

[2683] Yeah, you want...

[2684] Was that word on your iPad?

[2685] That's right.

[2686] Dictionary .com word of the day.

[2687] That's my word of the day.

[2688] Recompense.

[2689] I was waiting for that one to come up.

[2690] Episcopalians.

[2691] Actually, I'm not going to lie to you.

[2692] I'm staring at a great big picture of Fatality on my iPad right now.

[2693] See?

[2694] You can tell because it says Fatality next to it.

[2695] Is that some speakers or some peripheral that he's sponsoring?

[2696] And he's wearing a shirt.

[2697] It's crazy.

[2698] He's a grown -up.

[2699] That's not Fatality.

[2700] Some Photoshop job.

[2701] Yeah, they clearly.

[2702] Well, it is a picture of Bill Gates' face.

[2703] I was just thinking about home the other day.

[2704] about how long it's been since you had logged into home about is that home was home still around yeah i did i did at g4 the stories would have been like a year and a half old now but i did like i never used home didn't give a shit and i was like who uses it because i know it makes a lot of money yeah really yes it does it's successful really somehow so so the basic way it's successful is that it has a core user base that goes in all the time and buys everything So it doesn't have a real widespread appeal.

[2705] But the people that are in, it's kind of second life -ish in that the people that are in there are just buying it all.

[2706] They are engaged as hell.

[2707] Yes.

[2708] Yeah.

[2709] That's crazy.

[2710] I've never thought the answer to bringing up that question was its success.

[2711] It's apparently very valuable to marketers.

[2712] Like it's seen as a very viable way to get the message out.

[2713] Because they don't need, they haven't really needed to do any more work on it.

[2714] Because as it stands.

[2715] Like the people that have passed judgment on it aren't going to go in.

[2716] Like there's nothing you can do to make that place like real interesting to anyone that doesn't already think that the idea of going into this virtual world with ugly avatars and dancing.

[2717] But I spent – I did a whole month where I tried to spend – I would spend an entire evening just wandering around home just asking people, why are you here?

[2718] They own everything and they have real customized – I mean they just – it's a place for them to – like they have a friend group.

[2719] It's essentially their – IRC channel or their message board.

[2720] And it's free.

[2721] That's obviously a huge selling point.

[2722] Unless you want to pay like $14 .99 for a couch.

[2723] I added up all the items in there one night when I was in there.

[2724] It's just ridiculous how much stuff is on there.

[2725] But people buy it.

[2726] I've gone to GDC sessions where they're like, we know the perception is that home is a giant failed piece of crap.

[2727] But actually, it's incredibly...

[2728] It's just a marketing testing ground.

[2729] I had always heard that marketers and advertisers freaking love home.

[2730] I'd always heard that end of it to be true.

[2731] And if you think about it, you know, in a way, all of the avatar customization bullshit that they sell on the 360 is no better.

[2732] In fact, is way worse than the home stuff.

[2733] Because at least home, there is a place to run around with your dude with all the stuff that you bought.

[2734] It's just a dashboard.

[2735] Yeah, on the 360, it's like I can go down my friends list and see.

[2736] what my friends look like at that point.

[2737] But you can't really.

[2738] That stuff doesn't even show up most of the time.

[2739] Yeah, exactly.

[2740] Even then, there's nowhere to go and do stuff with your avatars.

[2741] The number of places that anybody that's not you can see the stuff the avatar is wearing is very limited.

[2742] On 360?

[2743] Yeah.

[2744] I never really noticed that.

[2745] Well, Home just seemed like it was just a secreted away thing that nobody ever clicked on.

[2746] But it's because they just have this audience that just loves it.

[2747] Well, it's also never gone out of beta.

[2748] I should go back.

[2749] It's been a year and a half since I did that series again.

[2750] Going back to home.

[2751] So that's down, obviously, right?

[2752] That must be down.

[2753] Maybe that's on a separate server.

[2754] I want to see what's up at home.

[2755] I want to go do a new home quick look.

[2756] Can you imagine just the people?

[2757] I'll go back.

[2758] We can make a video series out of this.

[2759] The folks having home withdrawals.

[2760] I can't fucking get into home.

[2761] I don't know what my friends are doing.

[2762] I always thought home would be cool if they just went the whole matrix route of letting you make gigantic rooms that never end.

[2763] Giving you god mode?

[2764] Or maybe just give one random person at home debug access.

[2765] Let's have a dragon.

[2766] All sorts of crazy stuff.

[2767] I checked back in.

[2768] to home like last year at some point and the thing that really struck me is that it felt just as small and limited and like beta testy yep as it did on launch as it did when it first launched but it's again go boot up second life like not any different really it's just but second life is kind of crazy isn't it it is but it's the same you know it's a smaller version of that it's just it doesn't matter that it's janky and that it doesn't work that's why actually like it's endearing to those people They like that it's janky and weird, and they like that nobody comes there because they don't have to deal with other people.

[2769] Weird.

[2770] It's weird.

[2771] Yeah.

[2772] Anyway, what were we talking about?

[2773] We're glad we just talked about PlayStation Home for 20 minutes.

[2774] Oh, we're talking about PSN being down, right.

[2775] Yeah.

[2776] I don't know when it's going to be back up.

[2777] It could be weeks.

[2778] What?

[2779] If they have to rebuild the login infrastructure.

[2780] Weeks?

[2781] Depending on how paranoid they are about it.

[2782] On how thoroughly they want to.

[2783] Remember, this is Japan and the internet.

[2784] Can people play SOCOM?

[2785] No. That's ludicrous.

[2786] You can't play SOCOM, you can't do Portal Co -op, you can't do Mortal Kombat.

[2787] Like a bunch of online stuff just came out.

[2788] Like, Zipper got screwed, Mag didn't work out that well, and all of a sudden SOCOM 4 launches and then PSM goes down.

[2789] SOCOM 3 had a similarly shitty launch too, so last two SOCOM games, not...

[2790] Well, it was confrontation.

[2791] I'm sorry, that's right.

[2792] Thank you.

[2793] SoCon 3 was a PS2 game.

[2794] That was a Slant 6.

[2795] That was a Slant 6 joint.

[2796] It's a different developer.

[2797] But the last two...

[2798] Still, the SoCon series is...

[2799] Yeah.

[2800] Yeah, yeah.

[2801] That is a real shame.

[2802] Yeah.

[2803] Can you imagine being...

[2804] I can't.

[2805] I really can't.

[2806] And they just lost their lead designer, too.

[2807] That happened today.

[2808] We just put out an online -focused game, and then the platform that we are exclusively available on lost its online.

[2809] All three.

[2810] All three of the major releases last week were billed as best on PlayStation.

[2811] Yeah.

[2812] More combat, got extra content.

[2813] Portal got all the Steam stuff.

[2814] Yeah, I didn't even think about that.

[2815] All those games are marquee PS3 releases and none are functional.

[2816] It should have been a kick -ass week for PS3.

[2817] But at least SOCOM, I mean, at least MK and Portal, they could sell units on other platforms.

[2818] And SOCOM is like...

[2819] No, no, no. This is why it's extra bad for Sony.

[2820] Yeah, obviously a bummer for everyone involved.

[2821] Like, hey, we released this game on your platform and your platform's all fucked up.

[2822] That's no good for us.

[2823] I mean, they gave you very compelling reasons to buy those games on their platform.

[2824] Yeah, this is weird.

[2825] It might also come as a campaign, but you're not...

[2826] It's not why you're not there.

[2827] You're just hoping the campaign's a fun distraction.

[2828] You're there for the multiplayer.

[2829] You look all right.

[2830] It seemed more fully fleshed out than what they had done in past SOCOM games of just, like, bots or whatever.

[2831] So that's why, like, when you say weeks, you just imagine you are throwing every resource you can to get this out today.

[2832] Yeah, I mean, I'm being hyperbolic, but the fact that they're not giving any date or timeline, there's no reason to think that it couldn't be.

[2833] I wouldn't think that Amazon web hosting would go down for days at a time.

[2834] 48 hours.

[2835] Yeah.

[2836] Neither would I. It's bananas.

[2837] So, you know what?

[2838] Fucking now anything is possible.

[2839] Literally anything can happen now.

[2840] You know what the best server to get on?

[2841] Nothing is true.

[2842] That's right.

[2843] For Amazon is the one that just went down because there's no way that shit's going down.

[2844] You're saying that the server we're on right now just cling to that one because we are good.

[2845] Everything's new.

[2846] All the fail safes are put in.

[2847] They're checking that one every day.

[2848] There's a dude just looking at it all the time.

[2849] Just waiting for it to blink.

[2850] Yo, did that not blink?

[2851] Shit.

[2852] Check it.

[2853] Check it.

[2854] Write it down your moleskin every time you think it didn't blink.

[2855] Blink.

[2856] Blink.

[2857] That sounds like a test.

[2858] Yeah, this Sony thing is bizarre.

[2859] It's crazy.

[2860] Well, and it's crazy the lack of information for being – you have to wonder if that's what we're getting.

[2861] What are – how much information are developers getting, you know, people like Insomniac working on, you know, if you look at what's happening to something like a SOCOM, if you're Insomniac and you're looking at, you know, well, we're making a PS3 exclusive game too.

[2862] And think of like the non -enthusiast.

[2863] like, player base.

[2864] Right.

[2865] If you're not going online to find out what the hell is going on, it's just down.

[2866] The people who aren't wired into, like, fucking Twitter accounts and, you know, nowhere to look for information like that.

[2867] You're just like, I want to turn on my PS3 and play some fucking Call of Duty.

[2868] You turn that on and you're like, why can't I fucking play Call of Duty on my PlayStation 3?

[2869] Poor ISPs getting phone calls of, like, it's not connecting.

[2870] We don't know, sir.

[2871] It works from here.

[2872] Oh, yeah.

[2873] I'm sure there is this weird ripple effect of, like...

[2874] customer service in all these other weird tangential areas know all about the fact that PlayStation Network is down.

[2875] Right.

[2876] There's already, like, pat answers in India somewhere.

[2877] The dude that knows, like, are you trying to get on the PlayStation Network?

[2878] Yeah, that shit isn't working right now.

[2879] That's not us.

[2880] That's not us.

[2881] That's not your ISP.

[2882] Please call Sony customer service at 1 -800.

[2883] Exactly.

[2884] That's not your ISP.

[2885] That's not your router manufacturer.

[2886] That's not your computer manufacturer.

[2887] Sorry, I said your neighbor's stealing your internet.

[2888] No. That's not Comcast.

[2889] Your computer doesn't have a virus.

[2890] No, no. You sure?

[2891] That's not Dell.

[2892] Well, it could.

[2893] But that's not this.

[2894] Unrelated.

[2895] Your kid did not fuck up your internet.

[2896] Or did he?

[2897] Or did he?

[2898] He also touched your tools.

[2899] Go get the shit out of him.

[2900] He's been touching my tools.

[2901] He also hid the clicker.

[2902] God damn it.

[2903] God damn it.

[2904] He's touching my fucking tools.

[2905] It's going to turn into a therapy session in about two minutes.

[2906] Did you touch the tools, Vinny?

[2907] Oh, God.

[2908] Don't touch.

[2909] Never touch.

[2910] You never touch the tools.

[2911] Two things you don't touch.

[2912] He touched them once.

[2913] Never again.

[2914] The lesson learned on touching the tools.

[2915] Don't touch the tools and don't touch the fucking remote.

[2916] That's right.

[2917] Man. Gotta find that fucking clicker.

[2918] What the fuck is that clicker?

[2919] The clicker.

[2920] God damn it.

[2921] Anyway.

[2922] Let's keep going.

[2923] I like this.

[2924] I had something else.

[2925] I had one more thing.

[2926] Oh, yeah.

[2927] So EA announced what their...

[2928] No. It was a survey.

[2929] Wait, before we move on from PSN.

[2930] No, no, no. EA announced what their online pass was going to be for Alice Madness Returns.

[2931] Oh, that.

[2932] Oh, that was kind of cool.

[2933] Yeah.

[2934] Sorry, I was heading off at the EA Sports subscription thing.

[2935] Oh, no, no. That's the more recent thing.

[2936] This is the older thing.

[2937] This is from sometime last week.

[2938] Yeah, this one's weird.

[2939] So it's the online pass for Alice Madness Returns for the PS3 and 360.

[2940] But in order to download the original Alice, which they're porting, you have to have the online pass.

[2941] to download it through an in -game menu in the game.

[2942] So it's not like you're going to pre -order and get a code to download it for free from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

[2943] If you weren't going to buy Madness Returns, you could not get the XBLA PSN version, at least probably until a later date.

[2944] Well, they're even saying if you get a copy of Madness Returns and you don't have the pass for it, within Madness Returns, you can still pay $10 to get...

[2945] this port of the original.

[2946] But it's all through the menu.

[2947] It's not going to be accessible outside of it.

[2948] It still strikes me as, like, a really compelling way to handle this whole online pass, you know, kind of project that they're going for.

[2949] Because that game is fucking impossible to find in reasonable means on the PC.

[2950] Like, that's a weirdly rare -ass game.

[2951] I got a box copy.

[2952] Factor sealed.

[2953] Do you still, really?

[2954] You can sell that for $150 without breaking a sweat.

[2955] Somebody hit me up.

[2956] It's not a very good game.

[2957] Fuck out.

[2958] Have you played it recently?

[2959] Come on.

[2960] Some people love it.

[2961] I loved it back in the day.

[2962] It's interesting because it's a very polarizing game.

[2963] I would be willing to believe that it has not aged super well.

[2964] The platforming does not hold up.

[2965] I mean, it was a third -person game made in the Quake 3 engine, which is not designed for that kind of thing.

[2966] It's the Quake 3 engine?

[2967] Yeah, I played it recently.

[2968] I don't think you were here when we talked about playing it.

[2969] I booted it up not more than like two or three weeks ago.

[2970] It doesn't hold up.

[2971] The cut scenes and stuff are still cool.

[2972] The atmosphere.

[2973] That game is pure aesthetic.

[2974] But, man, it's maybe one of the worst.

[2975] Like, it just looks so jank.

[2976] It's bad.

[2977] It's bad.

[2978] I'm sorry, Brad.

[2979] Because I had better memories, too, and I was like, I'm going to plow through Alice.

[2980] I remember this being awesome.

[2981] Wait, where did you get it?

[2982] I had it installed.

[2983] I couldn't even find the disc anymore.

[2984] I was like, crap, I don't even know if this will work.

[2985] I can't find my other copy of it.

[2986] I lost the disc for that.

[2987] I've got the sealed one, but now I don't want to open it.

[2988] No, you shouldn't.

[2989] I don't know what the copy protection stuff is, but I can maybe zip it and give it to you if you want to try it.

[2990] But yeah, man, it's kind of the worst.

[2991] Yeah, it doesn't hold up at all.

[2992] I'll be curious to see if they do any sort of cleaning up.

[2993] in this port.

[2994] Well, it never came out on consoles, right?

[2995] No, this is the first time it's going to appear on console.

[2996] They were porting it and then canceled it.

[2997] They were going to do an Xbox.

[2998] So kind of the weird omission of all this is that the PC version, which is coming day and date with the PS3 and 360 versions of Madness Returns.

[2999] They just said they haven't said what they're going to do with it.

[3000] I don't think they're saying you're not going to get it.

[3001] They didn't say no, but all they said yes to for this was the console versions, which is, I don't know, interesting, I guess.

[3002] It would be amazing if they went back and at least...

[3003] tightened some of the controls on level 3.

[3004] That is doubtful.

[3005] I mean, just adapting the movement and camera to analog sticks would probably go a long way.

[3006] Yeah.

[3007] I mean, it's still going to be a 10 -year -old game no matter how you cut it, but it's interesting and I feel like it's a good way.

[3008] It is a value -adding way.

[3009] to approach this idea of we want to sell new copies of our games.

[3010] I like that better than locking content that would typically be there or something like that.

[3011] Like this is a value added to the product.

[3012] Yeah, absolutely.

[3013] And then they'll probably just a month later let you buy it on Xbox Live.

[3014] Yeah, for $10 or whatever.

[3015] It'll already be there.

[3016] They'll just unlock it.

[3017] It's no longer an incentive to buy the game first month.

[3018] So while we're talking about the goodwill, let's talk about this EA Sports subscription model.

[3019] Yeah.

[3020] This is part of a survey.

[3021] Yeah, so there was a survey that got picked up by a bunch of sites.

[3022] It was basically just they're looking to do a value add for the sports games that would...

[3023] I don't have all the details in front of me, but one of the more compelling arguments was that by subscribing to it, you would be able to download the games ahead of the retail release, and that upon the retail release...

[3024] you'd have to go buy the disc.

[3025] So if you were paying, say, $30 a year for access to all of the EA Sports games five days ahead of release, but then upon release, those digital versions don't work anymore, you have to buy the disc, but all your stuff, your saves, your achievements will carry over into that disc version.

[3026] So you're paying for a bunch of demos.

[3027] That's not the only thing.

[3028] I'm just giving you an example of that's one of the...

[3029] Right, but you don't get any progress out of demos.

[3030] No, but...

[3031] And it's also like...

[3032] potentially the full version of the game.

[3033] Demos also don't force you to buy the...

[3034] I don't know.

[3035] It's a weird...

[3036] Some of the other ones were more regular.

[3037] If you think about it, this is for someone who was playing full seasons of Madden.

[3038] Sure.

[3039] This is for someone for whom five days with a game is not enough to finish a campaign.

[3040] That's not the kind of...

[3041] Sports games aren't really like that.

[3042] But you're not getting $10 off the retail copy or anything, right?

[3043] Duh, doubtful.

[3044] So you're basically just paying for a time -limited...

[3045] period of early access.

[3046] Some of the other stuff was getting more access to roster updates, ensuring that DLC will carry over to the next product rather than you having to repurchase that DLC.

[3047] Again, I don't have all the stuff in front of me, but the stuff, it's not cheap.

[3048] The different pricing models were going up to $29 .99.

[3049] But again, it's not just for a specific game.

[3050] It's that if you're buying all these EA Sports games every year anyway, what's another $30?

[3051] The argument against that is that why can't they just make these value instead of stuff anyway rather than making you pay $30 on top of it?

[3052] I'd be curious to see if they are talking about this as a full -on EA Sports package.

[3053] What's the crossover from game to game?

[3054] What games do they see the most amount of crossover between their games?

[3055] That people are going to buy all of them?

[3056] Are the soccer fans also buying Madden?

[3057] If there is crossover, what is the other EA Sports game that the Tiger crowd is buying?

[3058] Where are they attaching?

[3059] I imagine that probably Madden is the lowest common denominator of all of those.

[3060] So it's going to be Madden and.

[3061] Where's the NHL?

[3062] I think FIFA sells more than Madden at this point.

[3063] I'm sure you go worldwide, absolutely.

[3064] For sure.

[3065] But those titles don't do used sales anyway, right?

[3066] Nobody's buying last year's Madden.

[3067] Those things always seem to die at the used game sales.

[3068] Oh, yeah.

[3069] And that's also because they shut down those servers every year.

[3070] Oh, do they really?

[3071] Oh, yeah.

[3072] And the roster updates.

[3073] Really?

[3074] They click them off?

[3075] Not just a year out.

[3076] Like, they let it go a little further.

[3077] A couple years, yeah.

[3078] But it's part of the reason that EA has all of their own, like, the EA GamesNet stuff, why you have to have that separate fucking login for all your games, is because they're running their own servers.

[3079] They're not just doing it peer -to -peer.

[3080] Oh, I thought they just did that one time.

[3081] No, they shut fucking...

[3082] EA puts out, like, shutdown notices on their games for servers for all their stuff, not just the sports stuff.

[3083] When was the last one that shut down, like, NBA Live?

[3084] Pretty regularly.

[3085] Oh, they shut down NBA Live 07 or 08.

[3086] So now you can't get any of those achievements?

[3087] Yeah, there was that one achievement.

[3088] I remember that.

[3089] That's where we got a game plan.

[3090] So yeah, last year that game shut down.

[3091] But I thought that was like one sweeping thing.

[3092] I didn't realize that they do that regularly.

[3093] Well, they do those sweeps regularly.

[3094] They'll come out and say, all right, here's a handful of EA games that we're taking the servers offline for.

[3095] That's a little gnarly.

[3096] A little bit.

[3097] Yeah.

[3098] A little bit.

[3099] Well, I mean especially it's more gnarly for stuff that's – but I imagine it's also like these are games that literally no one is online playing.

[3100] And also these games come out annually.

[3101] Like the model is built on – Sure.

[3102] The annualized stuff I don't mind so much because if you are into Madden, you're there for the – You're not, like, dedicated to Madden 07.

[3103] Well, you're true to the, like, you want the full football experience.

[3104] You want the new roster and all that other shit.

[3105] That's where I feel like they should go with the subscription stuff.

[3106] It's like, here, you know what?

[3107] Guarantee me 10 years of Madden and give me, like, $100 off or something like that.

[3108] And I will prepay.

[3109] I think that's what people kind of want out of it is that these games shouldn't be $60 every year considering how similar, like, how incremental the upgrades are.

[3110] Like, roster updates and new racks.

[3111] Yeah, but if you maybe prepay ahead of time for a subscription.

[3112] Get a discount on those disc things.

[3113] Yeah, give me something for being a valued customer who's going to buy them every year anyway.

[3114] So just why don't you give me a little something here.

[3115] I mean, not to sell them, sure.

[3116] I mean, they do go into the change mechanics and stuff like that.

[3117] I do find the releasing it early is sort of like EA's way.

[3118] Because the way if those games lock, so you have to buy the disc.

[3119] But they're also sort of implementing the technology now to give a big FU to retail.

[3120] Like they're already getting their users lined up.

[3121] getting used to it, and then once they can turn the switch, they're ahead of other publishers on doing that four or five years now.

[3122] Except for Valve.

[3123] They're not on Xbox.

[3124] They're already doing it.

[3125] EA's got their EA store.

[3126] I hear terrible things about it.

[3127] I bought Spore from them once.

[3128] Never again.

[3129] Oh, yeah.

[3130] That's right.

[3131] That was a nightmare experience, wasn't it?

[3132] That was pretty terrible.

[3133] And they charged me like an extra five bucks for doing it, too.

[3134] Just don't.

[3135] Oh, to be able to download it in perpetuity through the future.

[3136] Because it was one of those like.

[3137] Oh, the weird DRM stuff.

[3138] Where when you first buy it, like for the 50 or 60 bucks, you get it this one time.

[3139] Or like 90 days or something.

[3140] Something crazy.

[3141] To download the install file.

[3142] After that, it's gone.

[3143] I don't know.

[3144] That shit was weird.

[3145] Anyway.

[3146] Yeah.

[3147] Let's move on from news.

[3148] What I was going to say about the PSN is do you think Sony will acknowledge it during an E3 press conference?

[3149] Do you think Jack Trenton is going to make some joke about PlayStation Network going down?

[3150] It depends on how long it's down.

[3151] I think that's too far.

[3152] My guess is given how severe the breach seems, or at least...

[3153] the implication that they will not want to make light.

[3154] Yeah, this is not a joking matter.

[3155] I don't know.

[3156] I feel like Sony's been okay in the last two years of life.

[3157] Yeah, totally.

[3158] But that's like early leaks of shit.

[3159] That's different from cataclysmic failure of core systems.

[3160] They just screwed over something that a team worked on for the last three years of their lives.

[3161] This is a major blow to a publicly held company.

[3162] They're not going to go in there and joke.

[3163] That's why I put that out there.

[3164] Just kind of thinking ahead a little bit.

[3165] Is that another Vinny E3 prediction?

[3166] Yeah.

[3167] Well, I don't know.

[3168] I'm not so sure.

[3169] sure on that one.

[3170] See -through Wii 2.

[3171] No, that wasn't me. I'm saying proprietary HDMI port.

[3172] How hard is Jack Trenton punching someone right now?

[3173] Just punching them into ghosts.

[3174] The question is how many people is he punching simultaneously?

[3175] He's got to line them up and just punching through them.

[3176] Every appendage.

[3177] I just imagine he's got a switchblade doing the knife hands.

[3178] Kneeing a guy in the gut.

[3179] Lance Hendrickson.

[3180] That's right.

[3181] With that game poem.

[3182] Yeah, just the cha -cha -cha -cha -cha.

[3183] And then he's like, put your hand on the table.

[3184] Maybe he hired Lance Hendrickson to come do it with him because you can hire that guy to do anything.

[3185] He's like making a point each time he does a finger.

[3186] He's like...

[3187] What did we say when we started this company?

[3188] We'd never have downtime.

[3189] Network stability.

[3190] Network stability is key.

[3191] Stability, stability, stability.

[3192] Like right through the top of the town.

[3193] Get my servers up.

[3194] I mean, all the real calamity is going on in Japan, right?

[3195] Like that's where all the infrastructure is.

[3196] And that's also assuming Jack Trent knows what's going on.

[3197] Oh, Jack Trent knows what's going on.

[3198] He's got three sleeves rolled up right now.

[3199] He's down and dirty.

[3200] He brought in that shirt?

[3201] Yeah.

[3202] God damn.

[3203] Defcon 3 shirt.

[3204] Rolled up a pant leg.

[3205] He's like, shit.

[3206] He's going to bike home later.

[3207] He's wearing sandals.

[3208] He's living death row.

[3209] Fuck.

[3210] Are there any new games this week?

[3211] Yeah, Dark Spore is out this week.

[3212] That exists.

[3213] I hear good things about that.

[3214] Do you?

[3215] Diablo -ish?

[3216] Yeah, if you like Diablo, it sounds pretty cool.

[3217] Dungeon Crawler set somehow in the Spore.

[3218] Well, it's got the Spore Creature Creator stuff.

[3219] It's got the Spore Creature Creator.

[3220] Is that retail?

[3221] Is that box copy?

[3222] I'm sure it's all over the place.

[3223] Can I get that on the PlayStation 3?

[3224] Nope.

[3225] That's a PC -only.

[3226] Is it?

[3227] Okay.

[3228] It's a PC -only product.

[3229] That's kind of the only box thing worth talking about that's out this week.

[3230] Ubisoft's putting Outland out.

[3231] That game looks real good.

[3232] Yeah, I've played a little more of it.

[3233] Does it play as good as it looks?

[3234] I don't think I can talk about that just yet.

[3235] Okay.

[3236] It does look really nice.

[3237] I do really want to.

[3238] I want to play it though.

[3239] Okay.

[3240] Acknowledged.

[3241] Just wanted to put that out there.

[3242] Fair enough.

[3243] But yeah, not a lot of retail releases still.

[3244] Riding hot off last week.

[3245] Keep playing Portal and Mortal Kombat.

[3246] That should keep you happy, at least for a little while.

[3247] We'll take a look at some older stuff, I think, this week.

[3248] Maybe some stuff.

[3249] We had some stuff last week and the last week.

[3250] Yeah, we missed some stuff last week.

[3251] I now know that Sega is, in fact, sending over a copy of The Conduit 2, so we can check that out.

[3252] That flew under the radar.

[3253] That's a stealth chip on that thing.

[3254] Dude, if you were not MK or Portal last week, you stealthed everything.

[3255] Is that on shelves, though?

[3256] That was on shelves last week.

[3257] Okay.

[3258] Yeah.

[3259] Man. I'm supposed to know this stuff.

[3260] According to people.

[3261] According to organizations that sell those things.

[3262] All right, let's talk about some emails.

[3263] Oh, man. Every week, all this pressure.

[3264] I don't even look at you.

[3265] I don't even care.

[3266] Vinny always just eyeballs you so hard.

[3267] Emails.

[3268] Blow it out.

[3269] I like that.

[3270] Bombcast at GiantBomb .com.

[3271] First email comes in from Jacob in Austin, Texas.

[3272] Dear Bombcast, with the Wii's successor reportedly coming out about this time next year, do you think this will force Microsoft or Sony to move early into a new set of hardware despite their recent statements that they believe they have 10 -year machines?

[3273] Can we throw out the whole 10 -year cycle fallacy already?

[3274] Did they say something again?

[3275] It wasn't true during the PS2, and it's not true when they set it over the PS3.

[3276] It's just a thing they say.

[3277] Well, I think when they say that, they're not saying we're not going to put out another piece of hardware for 10 years.

[3278] It's this thing will have a, like, irrespective of anything else we put out afterwards, this thing will maintain for 10 years.

[3279] Which has been true for the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2.

[3280] Sony's been very good about supporting their hardware even after they've moved on.

[3281] Totally.

[3282] That doesn't mean there won't be a PlayStation 4 for 10 years after the PS3 comes out.

[3283] Fucking PlayStation 2 games came out last year.

[3284] Came out this year.

[3285] Yeah.

[3286] The SingStar games, I think, still come out.

[3287] Yeah, PS2 games still get produced.

[3288] So that's what they're really talking about now.

[3289] But let's get to the actual question here.

[3290] Oh, I thought that was the question.

[3291] No, no, no. I mean, the real question is, does this force their hand on the next system?

[3292] I mean – It's less about continuing supporting the old system and rushing out the next one.

[3293] We talked about it before.

[3294] Yeah.

[3295] I don't think so.

[3296] I think they have R &D going.

[3297] They have probably had R &D going for about two years now on their next system.

[3298] So I think they're probably – I would have said – I think at most because everything I've been reading and have heard about is that they are projecting 2014 for like their next stuff.

[3299] My guess is – but they won't give.

[3300] Or they shouldn't give Nintendo two Christmases.

[3301] But I think Nintendo gets 2012 all of themselves.

[3302] But I think it's pretty realistic to expect maybe Microsoft might pull the trigger by 2013.

[3303] By 13?

[3304] I always thought 2012 announcement, 2013.

[3305] I mean, you don't think that this, like if they give them enough time, that this could be like the nasty Dreamcast window of too late to one party, too early to the next?

[3306] For Nintendo?

[3307] Yeah.

[3308] I mean, it could be.

[3309] I don't think they care.

[3310] They're not in the same position that Sega was in.

[3311] Nintendo has much more goodwill with their franchises, and their franchises sell much more than Sega's ever did.

[3312] Do you think that pandering to the base in the way that the base wants is enough to sustain Nintendo?

[3313] For two years, sure.

[3314] They don't need more than a couple years out of this hardware.

[3315] Then they'll find a way to change it up again.

[3316] And keep in mind, even though the Wii has not been selling great recently, Nintendo is still liquid as fuck.

[3317] Sure.

[3318] But they've hit a ceiling.

[3319] Sure.

[3320] A ceiling of 80 million units.

[3321] Software -wise, that market turned out to have a much lower ceiling on it than they would have hoped.

[3322] Yeah, but they make their profit on every console, right?

[3323] Nintendo does.

[3324] Yes, but not as much profit as zillions of copies of games.

[3325] So it's certainly desirable to make money on hardware, but you really want to sell a whole bunch of discs.

[3326] That licensing fee, because you don't have to do anything for that.

[3327] Yeah, but they've been pushing out schlock on those shelves.

[3328] And that's why.

[3329] I mean, it seems pretty direct causing a fucking feck there.

[3330] Yeah.

[3331] No more E3.

[3332] I mean, if they manage to make another phenomenon like Wii 2, which seems unlikely.

[3333] But if they're able to produce another thing that makes everyone freak out the same way that we did, then I think you'll see stuff get pushed up.

[3334] But it's just really hard to know.

[3335] We're talking 2014, 2013.

[3336] I mean, that's a distance.

[3337] But I also just feel like we are in the goddamn wilderness of this industry as far as...

[3338] The cycle is broken.

[3339] The cycle that we've been in for the last 15, 20 years doesn't exist anymore.

[3340] They did just do big pushes for connected move, but I don't know that that means they're not ready to just go on to the next thing already.

[3341] I can't tell.

[3342] It's kind of terrifying.

[3343] Seems like these systems are still making a lot of money.

[3344] It does.

[3345] That's the thing that Wii wasn't able to do is that people buy lots of software for their 360s and P3s.

[3346] They don't do that on Wii, and I think Nintendo wants some of that.

[3347] I still keep fucking buying DLC for Harmonix games.

[3348] reasons I can't even justify it.

[3349] I went and bought the goddamn Xbox 360 keyboard over the weekend.

[3350] What was I thinking?

[3351] I don't know.

[3352] The keytar?

[3353] Yeah.

[3354] Bought that.

[3355] Went down to the GameStop.

[3356] Bought it at a store.

[3357] Paid sales tax on it.

[3358] That wasn't even like a drunk Amazon purchase.

[3359] No, I went to several stores.

[3360] I went to a Best Buy and they didn't have any and I'm like, alright.

[3361] What were you thinking after the first time life told you you don't need to buy this?

[3362] Well, I was really pissed at...

[3363] Let me say a thing or two about Best Buy, all right?

[3364] Sure, yeah, get on it.

[3365] Customer service is important, at least to me. If I'm going to bother going into your physical location and not just...

[3366] buy it from a robot on the internet and have it show up at my house a couple days later.

[3367] I kind of want some sort of customer service.

[3368] And watching two people who don't know the products, at Best Buy it's the worst because all of their in -store computers for their employees to look up products on is just their fucking website.

[3369] And watching other people poorly use their own website.

[3370] And me, I'm sitting here like, I know your website better than you do.

[3371] I know how to get the search results that you're looking for.

[3372] That should not be the case here.

[3373] You should have some sort of cool text -only screen where you're only hitting in three -letter abbreviations, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's – Checking in stock in the back.

[3374] That's Ben ID number, you know, 365945678.

[3375] Yeah, we've got three of those in stock.

[3376] That's in the back.

[3377] Look at one of those for you.

[3378] I want that sort of raw data, but this is like – typing in rock band as one word, and me standing going like, no. And it takes two of these people, and then when one guy says, just type in rock band, just two words, and he's like, just rock band?

[3379] He says, yeah.

[3380] And, like, the first page comes up, and it's just the games.

[3381] Does not even go on to the next page.

[3382] He goes, no, we don't have it.

[3383] Must be discontinued.

[3384] Are these teenagers?

[3385] No, these are grown men.

[3386] All right.

[3387] And I was just infuriated by, like, so your assumption is from you badly using your own company's website is, oh, that thing must be discontinued.

[3388] Because I couldn't find it on the first page.

[3389] Yes, sir.

[3390] I'm like, I wasn't even going to fight the issue.

[3391] I was like, okay, you don't want to sell me anything.

[3392] Great.

[3393] Oh, you took off?

[3394] Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm done.

[3395] You didn't even point it out.

[3396] No. That's awesome.

[3397] No, I'm just like, yeah, okay.

[3398] No, I didn't get anything else from you today.

[3399] Wow.

[3400] So then I went to the GameStop where I found the keyboard was even $10 cheaper than I could have gotten it at Amazon.

[3401] How much?

[3402] $40?

[3403] It was $69 on Amazon and it was $59 at the GameStop.

[3404] With a copy of the game or just the keyboard?

[3405] Just the keyboard.

[3406] Okay.

[3407] So I'm like, fucking bonus, getting it cheaper in store.

[3408] Let's do this.

[3409] And then the dude recognized me and was super cool about it.

[3410] So it was just like, this is.

[3411] Wow, that's a winning play, winning hand by GameStop in that case.

[3412] Yeah, just like we had it cheaper.

[3413] Dude knew who I was.

[3414] Wow.

[3415] And I didn't even go into that GameStop very often.

[3416] So yeah, mark on the board for fucking GameStop.

[3417] I know I shit on them and the retail experience that I get from them pretty often.

[3418] Wow.

[3419] Good.

[3420] I'm man enough to give one to GameStop.

[3421] So I will say they had it cheaper.

[3422] They had it.

[3423] Although I would have torn that store apart if they didn't have it.

[3424] You should have asked the guy to use his website just to test his skills.

[3425] If they hadn't – I think the thing is I think they have like real computers back there.

[3426] I think they can actually look shit up and not just Google themselves.

[3427] It's going to go to Best Buy's website.

[3428] Sometimes you don't take any kind of – solace in the fact that you were witnessing the death of brick -and -mortar stores.

[3429] Well, just it kind of made me realize.

[3430] So over the weekend, I also wanted to watch all of the Scream movies to get ready for four, which I then also went and saw.

[3431] So I had Screams 1 and 3 borrowed from Matt Rory, but they had Netflixed the second disc.

[3432] So I'm like, shit, I've got to figure out how to get...

[3433] Trying to find a DVD copy of Scream 2.

[3434] It's not streaming?

[3435] No, it is, which ended up being what I ended up doing, was going through my Xbox and just streaming it.

[3436] But I was just sort of thinking, like, I realized, like, if it's not a new release, like, where do you buy a DVD?

[3437] Yeah, they don't exist.

[3438] Coconuts.

[3439] There's no place to go.

[3440] Yeah, like, Best Buy has a pretty meager DVD section at this point.

[3441] Tower.

[3442] There's no tower.

[3443] That doesn't exist.

[3444] Like, there's...

[3445] You go to Amazon if you want an old DVD because it's the only place that fucking still has them.

[3446] For Best Buy, it makes me kind of crazy.

[3447] If you're going to bother having a physical place to get a thing, then you should have the things to get.

[3448] It's almost like they're like, oh, well, no one's buying this older stuff from us because they're buying it all from Amazon, so we don't even need to stock it.

[3449] It's like they are agents in their own demise.

[3450] It's like Blockbuster.

[3451] Yeah, exactly.

[3452] Pretending that the model isn't eroding.

[3453] their previous model and they don't have to change but but it's a completely different culture as well and this is a big old tangent right but like it's if i think it's different we grew up in an age where you're like shit this store in like new york has copies of scream one on like dvd i'm gonna buy this right now that doesn't exist anymore or like it has a copy of like you know uh Super Mario Brothers like sealed in a box.

[3454] Like that's crazy because there is no eBay.

[3455] There is no Amazon.

[3456] You have to find something physically and like once you find that like crazy little store in your neighborhood or something.

[3457] But those crazy little stores existed.

[3458] Existed.

[3459] That was the thing.

[3460] But they don't anymore.

[3461] There's no need.

[3462] Now it's like the goodwill.

[3463] But it got to the point where it's like if I need something now.

[3464] I literally can't go to a store and get it.

[3465] Because they're all out of business.

[3466] I was sitting there thinking like, okay, I hit the Best Buy.

[3467] They didn't have it.

[3468] I tried going to the Borders, which is in the process of going out of business, and they didn't have it.

[3469] So I'm like, okay, where else do I go in this area?

[3470] I'm just like, well, there's – no, all the video rental stores have closed down.

[3471] Like it's a weird – like as media – rich as everything seems to be right now, actually trying to go and buy physical media is fucking kind of hard.

[3472] Unless you're just doing it through a robot.

[3473] I don't know why you'd buy physical media.

[3474] Well, in this case...

[3475] You just streamed it in the end.

[3476] You made the right choice.

[3477] Yeah, eventually I was like, alright.

[3478] Fuck everyone.

[3479] That was probably a lot cheaper.

[3480] It was probably $3.

[3481] It was like $3 for the stream rental.

[3482] It was in 1080p HD.

[3483] You won that one.

[3484] You wouldn't have gotten any of that.

[3485] And again, I'm struggling.

[3486] I'm trying to support this brick -and -mortar system.

[3487] And they're like, no. Ditch it.

[3488] No. And I was actually kind of blown away also.

[3489] I feel like maybe this is another weird failing.

[3490] Kind of blown away that there was no reissue of those movies with Scream 4.

[3491] coming out.

[3492] Well, it's a typical thing.

[3493] You put out a new movie, you do DVD and Blu -ray reissues of the old movies.

[3494] Well, it seems like it's shameful because you couldn't get those movies on demand either.

[3495] I thought at least I'd be able to do that and they didn't exist.

[3496] It seems like maybe a little bit they think that you want to get it after the fact.

[3497] But they are available on Xbox, the Zune store on Xbox.

[3498] Yeah, I streamed three through Amazon on my Roku.

[3499] So like that solution exists.

[3500] Granted, you know, that doesn't take up.

[3501] Big box retailers.

[3502] Physical store space.

[3503] Brick and mortar.

[3504] Man, we just solved that mystery.

[3505] The only thing good about brick and mortar places and big box retailers is they're usually next to like an Applebee's or maybe like a Burger King or something like that.

[3506] And you're in a car already.

[3507] So like.

[3508] That's not a good thing.

[3509] No, that's pretty much the only thing they got going for them.

[3510] Like you're out there, you're spending too much money already.

[3511] Might as well just go to Friday's and get some jalapeno.

[3512] You already hate yourself enough.

[3513] Yeah, you've kind of been in a bad mood.

[3514] That teenager just treated me like a piece of shit anyway.

[3515] I'm going to go get some cheese sticks and a bad margarita.

[3516] Split this blooming onion with myself.

[3517] That's right.

[3518] There's a, right.

[3519] Except now they put the caloric content on the menu on everything, so now I know how much.

[3520] On a Bloomin' Onion?

[3521] They'll put it on any sort of major chain.

[3522] Really?

[3523] I think it's a California thing, right?

[3524] Restaurant?

[3525] Yeah, they've got to put caloric value on.

[3526] Oh, no. I think they passed the law.

[3527] Go into a fast food place sometime.

[3528] Go look up at the fucking value menu.

[3529] I don't want to see a Bloomin' Onion.

[3530] You won't eat food ever again.

[3531] Over time, it was empirically shown to make no difference, though.

[3532] They tested it in some markets and at some fast food places on, like, zero change in the buying patterns.

[3533] Really?

[3534] Yeah.

[3535] That's super interesting.

[3536] I was thinking about it.

[3537] Talking to Jessie, we should, like, she and I, we should make a site that charges food by calories of food and see if that, like, a Whopper would be, like, $7 ,800.

[3538] Yeah, a Bloomin' Onion would be a cost of men, man. Yeah.

[3539] I think it's the worst.

[3540] So, like, not necessarily a dollar per calorie, but, like, you know, how much?

[3541] How much does this cost you to feed you this many calories?

[3542] I don't wonder if that would change.

[3543] Well, I will say that even if it doesn't change buying patterns, it does increase overall shame.

[3544] So you buy more?

[3545] No way.

[3546] You can't even get it anyway.

[3547] You just push that to the back of your mind.

[3548] You're like, I can't believe I just bought like 2 ,000 calories worth of sand.

[3549] Oh, my God.

[3550] A prettier word is awareness, but yeah.

[3551] Well, like I feel like – No, it's – It's both.

[3552] It's shame.

[3553] Does it make you buy more at that point, though?

[3554] Or like, oh, fuck it.

[3555] I'm in this boat anyway.

[3556] Sit, pig.

[3557] Just go ahead.

[3558] Get a second one.

[3559] Do it.

[3560] Just keep piling it in.

[3561] Whatever.

[3562] There's got to be a human cap, right?

[3563] You can only ingest 4 ,000 calories.

[3564] Oh, man. I tried to discover it this weekend.

[3565] Never found it?

[3566] Slick the lining of your body so you just can't.

[3567] actually saturated anymore.

[3568] Sidebar, really enjoyed Scream 4.

[3569] Great.

[3570] Yep.

[3571] Go see it.

[3572] Went and saw it in a movie theater.

[3573] Much better than 2 and 3.

[3574] Nope.

[3575] You know what?

[3576] Much better than 2 and 3.

[3577] And I was also a little surprised that it wasn't in 3D.

[3578] Did we turn that corner?

[3579] No, I think that's just Wes Craven's old school.

[3580] So you want to hear something crazy?

[3581] Sure.

[3582] I don't know who in this room knows this.

[3583] Wes Craven is 71.

[3584] Sounds about right.

[3585] Dude.

[3586] That's not that crazy.

[3587] Guy is in his 70s.

[3588] I mean, you know, the first Nightmare on Elm Street, which was not his first horror movie.

[3589] Yeah, yeah.

[3590] It was like 83?

[3591] Right.

[3592] Yeah.

[3593] It was less house than left.

[3594] It's one of those creative forces that you just imagine as timeless, you know?

[3595] Like, Wes Craven's never going anywhere.

[3596] He's just making bad movies.

[3597] Somebody, at some point, someone will just buy his name and keep putting out the movies.

[3598] He has a son.

[3599] His son's making bad movies, too.

[3600] Is he?

[3601] His son did...

[3602] Oh, I saw a Kraven name show up.

[3603] He did the sequel to the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

[3604] Oh, I heard the remake was pretty good.

[3605] The remake was fantastic.

[3606] That's AHA, right?

[3607] AHA did Piranha 3D and Mirrors, which was not very good.

[3608] Yeah, I heard that also.

[3609] But The Hills Have Eyes is a good remake.

[3610] I should read more emails.

[3611] Okay.

[3612] I feel bad.

[3613] We're like way past time.

[3614] Long retail tangent.

[3615] Yeah.

[3616] It's relevant.

[3617] We had some grandma's cookies at the start of this podcast.

[3618] We know that they're expired.

[3619] Michael M. in Brooklyn.

[3620] Hey, Bombcast, I was looking at the cover of Portal 2 and couldn't find a published insignia anywhere.

[3621] I know EA published their previous console releases.

[3622] Is Valve self -publishing all their physical media?

[3623] I don't think that's completely accurate.

[3624] I think it was more of a distribution deal for the last couple.

[3625] It's not part of EA Partners, right?

[3626] Or is it?

[3627] I don't know that for sure.

[3628] When Valve first got involved with them, for the Orange Box stuff, it was pre -Partners.

[3629] Partners didn't exist.

[3630] Actually, Partners has been around for a long time.

[3631] Partners has been around long before that.

[3632] Oh, really?

[3633] I think the modern incarnation, the public -facing incarnation of Partners.

[3634] That's what I mean.

[3635] Even when they were acquiring Bullfrog and dismantling those studios, EA Partners existed.

[3636] It was more like an internal.

[3637] I guess their relationship with Criterion early on was probably a...

[3638] a Partners type thing because they did not own them.

[3639] I don't think Valve has ever taken advantage of the full extent of the Partners experience.

[3640] They don't do the marketing or anything like that.

[3641] All Partners is to its fullest extent is basically a developer -publisher relationship where they don't acquire the developer or the IP necessarily.

[3642] Or maybe sometimes the IP.

[3643] The point is EA loves to buy studios and own everything.

[3644] That's why MTV...

[3645] Games partnered for Rock Band was because there was no reason for them as essentially a small publisher to acquire a distribution network.

[3646] Right, so that's what I was going to say.

[3647] The Rock Band thing was just like EA was helping them distribute that stuff, but MTV Games was technically the publisher of the Rock Band stuff.

[3648] I want to say the Valve stuff is more like...

[3649] It's probably pretty similar.

[3650] Valve is handling much more of the operation itself.

[3651] EA is helping just put stuff out.

[3652] Anyway, I noticed that when...

[3653] Portal 360 came in here.

[3654] Yeah, there's no EA logo on that box anywhere.

[3655] Nor when you start the game up.

[3656] Yeah.

[3657] But...

[3658] Dude, I don't know.

[3659] That's a good question.

[3660] Good question.

[3661] I know that we were contacted by EA PR at least once about that game.

[3662] So they were involved in a very backseat kind of role, it seemed like.

[3663] They also did a lot of the PR for...

[3664] Left 4 Dead.

[3665] Yeah, they definitely helped out with Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 quite a bit.

[3666] So maybe just as Valve chooses to exercise its right to use them.

[3667] Right.

[3668] Well, I mean, they're clearly, like, erring further and further into...

[3669] making steam beyond everything and they made their own that portal tv ad valve was gonna give it to someone else so they decided to make it in -house because they could make changes faster they built that tv ad themselves really yeah wow i didn't know that they they knew that if they gave it to someone else to in order to get changes to the you know the company that would make that stuff they would take too long to make the actual like real -time changes that a company like that so they just made the tv ad themselves jeez All right.

[3670] Next email comes in from Matt C. Hey, Bombcast.

[3671] My good friend and Bombcast listener Sam got shot in the leg with a shotgun while wearing a Spider -Man costume yesterday.

[3672] Oh, God.

[3673] I'm so sorry.

[3674] I understand his prognosis is good, but he will have to undergo a bit of surgery and have some kind of recovery process.

[3675] It would definitely lift his spirits to know that you're all aware of his situation and are pulling for him.

[3676] Sincerest thanks.

[3677] So, yeah.

[3678] I don't think pulling for him is the best line there.

[3679] Paul!

[3680] Oh, God!

[3681] He didn't have to say it.

[3682] And he sent me a link to a news story concerning Sam.

[3683] I'm sorry, his name is Sam?

[3684] Sam.

[3685] Sam.

[3686] Assuming this is non -hoax, goddamn Sam, get better soon.

[3687] Sorry, that sounds real bad.

[3688] I hope he just caught a little stray buck or something and it wasn't like a...

[3689] The story here coming from...

[3690] I need some backstory.

[3691] NBC4i .com.

[3692] So this is, I believe, the local NBC station for somewhere.

[3693] This is a news story about...

[3694] This is a new story about this event.

[3695] So maybe we can find out why he was in a Spider -Man costume.

[3696] No, it lays it out very plainly.

[3697] Columbus, Ohio, a man is shot while filming a superhero movie in a Clintonville home.

[3698] Yesterday, Sunday evening, Sam Vesty, 23, was wounded while a gun discharged.

[3699] Vesty, costumed as Spider -Man, was with two friends who frequently make amateur superhero movies, authorities said.

[3700] Medics responded to a home on the 400 block, blah, blah, blah.

[3701] All right, so they were making a movie with a gun.

[3702] Messing around with a movie and didn't know it was loaded.

[3703] All right, I have to say, Sam, you're an idiot, but get better soon.

[3704] Yeah, I'm going to have to go with you.

[3705] Don't fuck around with a loaded gun.

[3706] Before filming began, Casey May, Age Unknown, was examining a shotgun that was being used as a prop.

[3707] The three thought the shotgun was not loaded.

[3708] Maybe you should look in the chamber and actually see.

[3709] Yeah, that's a rough mistake to make.

[3710] Or ask someone that knows how to use a gun.

[3711] Well, I'm sure these guys have been around guns, it sounds like, if they're whipping them out.

[3712] I'm going to say after one of y 'all gets shot in the leg, I bet that they scale back the amount of gunplay, one would hope, in their projects.

[3713] That's real lucky, Sam.

[3714] They've got to count your blessings on that one, and he just got dinged in the leg.

[3715] No doubt.

[3716] Damn.

[3717] Check it out.

[3718] No fan Spider -Man movies worth that one.

[3719] Man, there's a Paul hanging over each and every Spider -Man production.

[3720] Yeah, stay away from Spider -Man.

[3721] There's the curse, the Spider -Man curse.

[3722] Spider -Man, Spider -Man.

[3723] That Spider saw his end.

[3724] I've looked a couple of times at that Spider -Man to make sure it hasn't dropped.

[3725] Spider -Man on Broadway.

[3726] Spider -Man in Ohio.

[3727] Post -Spider -Man 2, man. That new movie.

[3728] Man. Have there been any reports from the new movie set?

[3729] Curse of the Spider -Man.

[3730] Bad shit going on?

[3731] Get well soon, Sam.

[3732] Yeah.

[3733] Watch those guns.

[3734] Lock them up.

[3735] Either way.

[3736] Don't play with that shit.

[3737] Don't be stupid.

[3738] God.

[3739] And sell props.

[3740] You just saw that orange tip off or something.

[3741] Don't do that either.

[3742] Just don't.

[3743] Spider -Man don't need guns.

[3744] Bad guys don't need guns.

[3745] Don't fuck around with guns.

[3746] Come on.

[3747] Yeah.

[3748] In general.

[3749] Good idea.

[3750] Shoot a deer.

[3751] Play some video games for Christ's sakes.

[3752] For once.

[3753] All right, that's it for the show.

[3754] We've gone way too long.

[3755] I'm going to call it.

[3756] Patrick, thank you for coming and joining us once again.

[3757] As always, a pleasure.

[3758] Yeah.

[3759] And hope the site stays up for your second week here.

[3760] News is tough to do without a site.

[3761] Google Docs to the rescue.

[3762] It was exciting today to look at the site and be like, there's a bunch of new news shit on here.

[3763] Because he was actually able to post it.

[3764] Yeah.

[3765] Instead of just like, I'm going to write it up, and then I guess I'll just save the file, and that'll be it.

[3766] Yeah, and Brad and Vinny.

[3767] Yeah, don't sell your orange tip off Ryan and Ryan.

[3768] That's probably illegal.

[3769] Yeah, no. I bet that is very illegal.

[3770] Don't do anything Vinny says.

[3771] Don't eat cheese.

[3772] Unless you're a rat.

[3773] Don't be a cheese eater.

[3774] Don't be a rat.

[3775] All right, the show is over.

[3776] Thank you guys for listening.

[3777] We'll be back next Tuesday with another edition of the Giant Bobby.