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Episode 159 - Microsoft Strikes Back

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Jan 24, 2022
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TL;DR

Lyman Sheets Jr. tribute, Haggis production update, Microsoft-Activision mega-deal discussion.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast episode covers mixed topics including entertainment media criticism (Book of Boba Fett), personal updates on gaming and equipment, and significant pinball/gaming industry news. Key items include the passing of legendary pinball programmer Lyman Sheets Jr., Haggis Pinball's Fathom Revisited production announcement, Multimorphic's new rhythm game module, and extensive discussion of Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard—described as the largest video game purchase in history.

Key Claims

  • Lyman Sheets Jr., famed rules designer and competitive player, passed away recently

    high confidence · Confirmed via Pinball News article; hosts discuss his impact on pinball community

  • Lyman Sheets programmed or co-programmed Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Batman 66, Spider-Man, and The Walking Dead

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony detail his specific contributions to major Stern titles; established industry knowledge

  • Lyman Sheets was working on enhanced software for Chicago Gaming Company's Cactus Canyon remake/revisited before his passing

    high confidence · Dennis states this was discovered after learning Lyman had left Stern

  • Haggis Pinball's Fathom Revisited began production in January 2022 as planned after pushing from summer 2021

    high confidence · Dennis confirms commitment was kept; positive signal for new manufacturer credibility

  • Multimorphic P3 now has a new rhythm-action hybrid game called Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion by Nick Baldrige using Cannon Lagoon module for $149

    high confidence · Dennis provides detailed mechanics description; GammaGoat streamed gameplay on Twitch

  • American Pinball's Dennis Nordman is rumored to be working on a Whitewater sequel as the next AP game

    medium confidence · Dennis heard this as a rumor; Deep Root previously had Yeti-themed sequel in license deck

  • Microsoft initiated purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest video game acquisition in history

    high confidence · Direct discussion of confirmed acquisition by both hosts; described as biggest gaming news in podcast's existence

  • Microsoft has purchased approximately 23 game companies total over recent years, roughly a dozen in the last 18 months

    medium confidence · Tony states approximate numbers; not verified as precise figures

  • The 2000-2009 Pinball Industry Awards Hall of Fame decade may need to be closed after 3-4 years to avoid inducting all eligible games

Notable Quotes

  • “In Lyman we trust. Because if he was on the rules, you knew that they might not start where you want them to be. But once he's done with it, it will be an excellent piece of software.”

    Dennis @ ~27:45 — Captures the deep respect and trust the pinball community had in Lyman Sheets' programming expertise

  • “Lyman saved Spider-Man. It was not a great game. And then he came in and saved it.”

    Dennis @ ~28:15 — Illustrates Sheets' reputation for dramatically improving games through rule design updates

  • “When you're new, you're sus. This is how it is. Everything, especially with just how poorly pinheads have been treated by new people.”

    Dennis @ ~48:25 — Reflects community skepticism of new manufacturers based on poor track record

  • “I'm at the point that if the company's name isn't Stern, we'll see a pinball machine when we see a pinball machine. It could be next week, it could be 15 years from now, it could be never.”

    Tony @ ~1:09:30 — Captures frustration with non-Stern manufacturers' production delays and broken promises

  • “Both of those companies through them have been talking multiple games a year. Honestly, I'm getting really sick of it. Give me one game a year for a couple years. I'll be happy.”

    Tony @ ~1:08:45 — Expresses skepticism about American Pinball and Jersey Jack's aggressive production claims

  • “This is literally the largest video game purchase in history.”

    Dennis @ ~1:24:30 — Emphasizes the unprecedented scale of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition

  • “I guess they saved some thanks to all those harassment claims driving that stock down.”

    Dennis @ ~1:24:50 — Notes cynical timing of acquisition price reduction due to company scandal

  • “It's a rhythm action game. So it's combination rhythm video game and combination pinball game.”

    Dennis — Describes innovative hybrid gameplay mechanic from Nick Baldrige's Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion

Entities

Lyman Sheets Jr.personDennis NordmanpersonNick BaldrigepersonJonathan MorelpersonBrian EddypersonJosh SharppersonSteve BowdenpersonHaggis Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Consistent pattern of non-Stern manufacturers making aggressive multi-game-per-year production promises they cannot deliver on

    high · Tony frustrated with American Pinball and Jersey Jack claiming 2-3 games/year; prefers one game/year for 'a couple years'; notes this has become expected behavior

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball demonstrated commitment to production timeline by beginning manufacturing in January as promised after summer 2021 delay

    high · Dennis notes this is important for new manufacturer credibility; contrasts with American Pinball and Highway Pinball's track record of broken promises

  • ?

    community_signal: Debate within Pinball Industry Awards committee about sustainability of 2000-2009 Hall of Fame category with limited worthy remaining candidates

    high · Dennis confirms he serves on committee; validates Jonathan Morel's email concern; indicates likely cutoff around 2024 without consensus solution yet

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community paying tribute to Lyman Sheets and documenting his legacy through Pinball News coverage

    high · Dennis references Pinball News article covering Sheets' death and pinball contributions

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Video game market consolidation creating concern about competitive dynamics as Microsoft absorbs major publisher

    medium · Both hosts discuss implications of Tencent, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Activision Blizzard rankings; note acquisition pushes Microsoft dramatically higher

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.239

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, January 23rd. This is episode 159. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Tony, you've got a different intro of stuff this time, right? Things haven't been like the same old, same old. Been pretty much identical. The only things that have changed is who is out with COVID.
0:42
So, I mean, just lots of work, falling asleep on the couch occasionally, playing SnowRunner occasionally, watching like Book of Boba Fett and finishing the Expanse and all that. What do you think about Book of Boba Fett? It's not as good as Mando. I think it's way not as good as Mando. It's had, of all the episodes that are out so far, it's like the first episode I was like, eh? I don't really care. Yeah, I know your reaction to the first episode was actually worse than mine was. Because I actually thought the first episode was okay. See, then I enjoyed the second episode quite a lot. It was better. And then the next two episodes, Sense of It. I read an opinion piece yesterday. I forget what side it was on. And I think that because I wasn't quite sure what isn't because like it's interesting graphically. They're throwing on the member berries in decent spots and stuff. And they articulated what – and I wasn't putting my finger on it. He's so nice, I think, for me is really what it's coming down to. It's not the flashbacks. They did spend too much time on too much. I don't think we needed to know the nuance of every piece of equipment he got from the sand people. Well, I think that could have been useful if they didn't just murder them all immediately afterwards. Maybe, but I killed them, the women and the children too.
2:12
No, for me, it's this, he wants to be a crime lord and he kills no one. and he's going around and like hey let's help the other families for free hey let's not do anything with the huts who try to assassinate me hey let's not kill any i mean i get the parts where he's merciful to build up his group like with the with the modified cyborg people and stuff but not this like i the way they the author described it was there's a scene in the the last episode that was on i think i think it's episode four for people that are haven't seen it there's a scene where there's these other families of the town or the planet or whatever. And it's totally like trying to give off a Godfather vibe and the way the author wrote it is, but he comes across like he's Secretary General of the UN.

high confidence · Dennis is on the awards committee; confirms Jonathan Morel's concern is valid and under committee discussion

  • Only one manufacturer (Stern) really meets Hall of Fame criteria for the 2000-2009 decade

    high confidence · Dennis confirms this reflects the weak era of pinball manufacturing

    • @ ~56:30
    American Pinball
    company
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Microsoftcompany
    Activision Blizzardcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    David Fixperson
    Jack Wineryperson
    Tencentcompany
    Sonycompany
    Nintendocompany
    Epic Gamescompany
  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Industry Awards Hall of Fame voting closed; Jonathan Morel email indicates community engagement with awards process and governance questions

    high · Listener submitted detailed concerns about Hall of Fame decade selection; Dennis confirms committee awareness and ongoing discussion of issue

  • ?

    licensing_signal: American Pinball's Dennis Nordman working on multiple licensed games; Sherlock Holmes trademark/license renewal confirmed

    medium · Dennis mentions Sherlock Holmes renewed (public domain theme but licensed for pinball); Nordman also working on other unlisted licensed titles

  • $

    market_signal: Microsoft's $68.7B Activision Blizzard acquisition represents largest video game purchase in history and consolidation of top-5 gaming companies

    high · Extended discussion of market implications; both hosts characterize this as unprecedented; combines two top-5 companies by revenue

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lyman Sheets Jr. passing represents loss of legendary code designer whose quality updates salvaged multiple major Stern titles (Spider-Man, The Walking Dead, Batman 66)

    high · Extended discussion of his specific contributions to genre-defining games; 'In Lyman we trust' community refrain indicates deep institutional dependence on his expertise

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball's next game rumored to be Whitewater sequel (possibly WH2O2 or Yeti-themed variant) following Dennis Nordman hire

    medium · Dennis heard this rumor; acknowledges Deep Root previously had Whitewater sequel in licenses; expects announcement possibly at Texas Pinball Festival

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment turning negative toward non-Stern manufacturers' ability to meet production timelines and promises

    high · Tony: 'I'm at the point that if the company's name isn't Stern, we'll see a pinball machine when we see a pinball machine. It could be next week, it could be 15 years from now, it could be never.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multimorphic P3 platform expanding into hybrid gameplay genres (rhythm-action) through third-party developer ecosystem

    high · Nick Baldrige's Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion represents innovative genre-blending; priced at $149 software module; demonstrates platform's modularity

    • 3:00
    And I'm like, that's what it is. I thought he was supposed to be this awesome bounty hunter, and instead he just feels like a, I'm going to do a charisma check on everything.
    3:11
    He's playing Fallout with the silver tongue perk. It very much has a Boba Fett's neighborhood feel. Yeah.
    3:24
    I like the action scenes. I like the – there's all sorts of pieces to it that are really good, but they're making him – I mean, the way – this is what I would agree with this is that, yeah, he's been Disney-fied. He's not cool. and the problem is he's the most famous bounty hunter of Star Wars and Mando is a more interesting character. You notice they didn't do all this with Mando. We've only got like teeny little bits about him as a kid and I don't think they need to ever tell us anything more about. We don't need to know. Yeah, you don't need to know the whole back story. How to get every piece of armor. Yeah, you don't need the whole back story to everything. I've also not been a fan of this kind of flashback, flash forward, jump around thing. I've historically not. That's not my favorite form of storytelling. Because in a way, it's like, why didn't we just do the origin of Boba Fett post-Sarlacc, if that's what you want? Because that's what most of the screen time is. It's not the current stuff. Right. But I get it. I mean, it's not my least favorite narrative device. It's just, yeah, anyway. Yeah. So have you been watching that in a new chair? I have. I upgraded my computer chair. My old computer chairs, I bought a lot of 10 conference room chairs that were being sold on public auction from a government for $10. So there was a dollar a chair. And they've been decently comfortable, and I've just been throwing them out as they break down. What do you do with dollar chairs? You don't repair a dollar chair. You retire it. I just toss them out. I still have like four of them left, I think, but I had some bonus money and stuff left over from Christmas and some Christmas money. So I combined everything together and I picked myself up a nice computer chair because I've not had an actual nice high back computer chair in forever. So I picked up a Secret Labs Titan XL 22, or 2022 edition.
    5:40
    That chair is enormous, which of course it is. It's XL. It's made for a fat guy like me. It is the absolute best packed thing I've ever purchased anywhere and ordered in. I have bought TVs that wish they were packed as well and protected as well as this was when it came in. Assembled real easy. Super comfortable.
    6:07
    My kids aren't huge fans because they say the seat is too hard. And it's like it's designed for a fat guy.
    6:19
    You weigh like 80 pounds. It's too hard for them. Maybe you're not going to sink into the foam padding because it's not designed for you. Think of the children. I don't.
    6:28
    This is my chair. I guess they can get one of the dollar chairs out of the garage. I guess they'd be like, okay, Dad, dollar chair it is. Yeah, they can have their vintage chairs that mom picks up at the antique stores and reupholsters for them and stuff. That's what they can have. Yeah, reupholster. I've got my fancy chair now. Fancy chair.
    6:56
    Well, I haven't been doing a whole lot. I did finish Biomutant, which I think you got me for my birthday. Possibly. Are you the one who got me? No. Who knows? No. Yeah, I don't blame you. Maybe. Furry Mutant. Possibly. It was. Birthdays were. Your birthday was a long time ago. I'm having problems remembering things from like four days ago. Well, anyway, it doesn't matter who got it. The point is it's been defeated. I have completed the Biomutant, so I have started my Yakuza game, Yakuza Like a Dragon. Okay. So you're done with furries. Yes. And now you're on to Yakuza. Which is a turn-based RPG game. Which is very different to the other Yakuza's I've played. I never played one before. Everyone's always like, oh, Yakuza's so good, Yakuza's so good. And now here I am, and I'm like, the guy's all like, I like to live my life kind of like I'm in Dragon Quest. I'm like, okay. Because he's doing turn-based combat just like Dragon Quest.
    7:53
    And there's a part where a guy goes, well, you know, it's like those games you play. We all have our different skills. And, you know, when we get together, we're a party. And there's a party menu. Because it's an RPG. They're kind of like leaning on that pretty heavy. You probably should have started with like Yakuza 0 or something like that. Like an actual Yakuza game. It is funny. but oh my gosh, the cutscenes are so long. Like, this game must come from Japan because I'm having the controller turn off during these cutscenes. It's a JRPG. You play those style games. I have totally played those games. To me, it's a red flag if the game ends up having the controller turn off because the cutscene went so long. I have definitely played games where I have died because the cutscene ends and you need to immediately do something. but I've been in a cutscene for 25 minutes. You see, the trick that I have to do is the old Capcom method that they started with Resident Evil 4 where it's like, oh, it's a cutscene, but we're going to throw some crappy QuickTime events at you to make sure you stay at that control. Hit X. Because I used to set them down and be like, what is Wesker doing to my neck? No, Shabba. Now I have to watch the whole cutscene again.
    9:05
    No. Now I have to hear his smack talk. So anyway, so that's what I've been doing. So let's go ahead and go into the pinball section. Okay. There's not a lot here, which is probably just as well. But I think the obvious thing we need to start with is, of course, the really sad news that Lyman Sheets Jr., famed rules designer, programmer, passed away, we found out just a couple of days ago. Yeah. And so I do have a link in the show notes if people want to read about Lyman. And there was a Pinball News article that covers his death and talks a bit about – it's not a very long piece, but it sort of covers what he was involved with in the hobby. Have you ever met him?
    9:47
    Not that I recall. I've probably been at an event with Lyman, but I've never spoken. I never spoke with him before. So it's one of those where I might have seen him in passing, like like like a lot of the other big names where I've seen them in passing or I've seen them like at an event where they were sitting down doing signatures or doing something. But I didn't get in line with it or anything like that. Yeah. And so, I mean, you know, there's sort of two there are two paths paths with Lyman, I would say that one was he was a very, very skilled competitive player. So a lot of people knew him from that scene because, I mean, he was an award-winning player.
    10:29
    And then, of course, the other side of it and the one I'm more familiar with is just the sheer amount of high-quality rules that he produced. So, I mean, I only own one game that he worked on, Walking Dead, which was actually the last of the Stern Cornerstones. But he was such a famed programmer, and I should say famed in terms of rules design, that it was like there was a common refrain that people would say, in Lyman we trust. Because if he was on the rules, you knew that they might not start where you want them to be. But once he's done with it, it will be an excellent piece of software. And we saw that with Walking Dead, which started with rules that weren't very well liked and ended as, in some people's minds, as Stern's best game. Similar thing happened with Spider-Man. I remember Steve Bowden, I don't remember if it was on our podcast when he was on, but I've heard him say before that, in his view, Lyman saved Spider-Man. Like, it was not a great game. And then he came in and saved it.
    11:35
    Batman 66. Remember they had to rush that out? I think they rushed it out because Adam West was really sick with cancer. Right. But that ended up with a – we know our area competitive players love the rules of Batman 66 because it's so well designed. Your favorite game of all time, Attack from Mars, he did the software for that. So, you know, worked on that with Brian Eddy. He worked on Medieval Madness as well. I mean, he's just – he's been involved with some of the most popular pinball machines to ever exist. Right. And even though we had learned last year that he had left Stern, we did subsequently find out that he was working on an enhanced software package with Josh Sharp over with Chicago Gaming Company on their Cactus Canyon remake. Yeah. I was trying to think if they were calling it remake or revisited. I can't really. I don't really remember anymore. I don't remember what they call it. So anyway, very, very tragic. Our condolences, of course, go out to all of his friends and family. So let's move to a happier pinball topic, Tony. And that would be Haggis Do you know how to let the air out of a man? I do I mentioned that When I was doing the pinball show last week to Zach I think I mentioned that And that I thought that they should do a Rob Roy pin And I don't think he knew what I was talking about I can guarantee you he did not know what you were talking about In his defense, most of our listeners probably don't know either Well, yeah Oh, I do have to say I did have one person write in to me and say they knew the movie line where I said, life is pain, you just get used to it. I did have one person know that it was from The Long Kiss Goodnight. Nice.
    13:12
    It was my sister, who apparently listens to the show. Well, that doesn't count. It doesn't. No, because I know she knows that movie. She's the only one of any of y'all who have any class. Bunch of trash tier people watching Book of Bubba Fit. So, anyway. So, Haggis. Okay, so they haven't announced they're doing Rob Roy, but this is the next best thing. They did announce that Fathom Revisited is now in production. Well, that's good for the 47 people who care. Yes. Or the 150 people who care. I don't actually know how many total. Didn't they increase it even more? Well, it's tricky because they did not increase the enhanced edition, which is like the LE, more than what they initially announced. However, they were also selling classic editions. And I don't think there's actually what it was. I'm not even sure if there was a you had to commit to the classic editions by a set date. You might have. I think so. I thought so, because I think they want to move. You know, I don't think they want to be pulling like an American pinball where everything is on the line forever. Right. I think they originally had planned to start doing production in the summer. They'd announced a push back to January, and it appears they did keep that commitment. And I again on the pinball show episode, which people can I don't remember what episode number it was. But you can is the last one if you want to check it out. The I did mention that I thought it would be it would behoove Damien, the the the owner of Haggis, to at least build or start building some of them in January and just keep that commitment to reassure folks. Right. And I don't know how many they're planning to build, but regardless, they are building them. And I think that was a smart move rather than trying to do another push. So very good news for people looking forward to that. I did read the announcement and it didn't sound like it was necessarily going to be just like a few. That they might actually be ready to get going and just keep it going. Which I'm not sure they had any more Celts to build anyway. Anyway, very positive. Right, I don't know how well the Celts sold overall. They didn't have very many to be done. I've heard very good things about it in terms of build quality from people who got them. You know, again, American Pinball. Pretty well renowned for their build quality as well. But making deadlines is just something I think is very important for anyone, but especially anyone who's new. And as we sort of talked about, I think in our year in review, you know, you got to remember that companies like Highway successfully built Full Throttle and then was the sophomore game where they stumbled. And so that's where I think people are. There's a lot more respect, I feel, for what Damien's doing out of Haggis than there was out There were a lot of concerns coming out of Highway Pinball for a really long time before the aliens were even released. But nonetheless, when you're new, you're sus. This is how it is. Everything, especially with just how poorly pinheads have been treated by new people. Well, in other pinball news, Tony, there is a new third-party development kit for the P3 out of Multimorphic called Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion. This is a Nick Baldrige game. It uses the Cannon Lagoon playfield module, and then it's a software purchase of $149. And this time, you know, Nick often does fairly unique things when it comes to what he's been working on in P3. And so in this case, he went with a rhythm action game. So it's combination rhythm video game and combination pinball game. And so I have not seen the footage of this. I think it was GammaGoat on Twitch streamed it. I did not see the footage of it, though. I've not seen any footage of it. And so basically, my understanding is there are roughly 30 songs in the game. You're actually hitting buttons to make your notes like you would in a lot of – for those – I don't know if the listeners have played rhythm games, but a lot of them are like click the notes on the controller. That's the vibe I'm getting from the walkthrough that I see. Now, if you miss a note, then a ball comes into play, and you're supposed to make a shot with that ball. Otherwise, I believe if the ball drains, you lose health. Missing notes, you lose health. And there's a scoring, but basically the song ends if you run out of all of your health. So again, like getting booed off the stage is how my analogy is. And there is a notation that on higher difficulties, there are different note modifiers that come into play and all of that. So anyway, I can't really say a lot other than it's out and that's the price and that's the module you need, but it's something new that P3 owners need. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, that's one thing is that Nick, by himself, has been pretty much pulling a ton of extra P3 stuff out. Yeah, he's got, I mean, he's had, right, we had him, the Silver Falls game he worked on with his daughter. That came out last year, and then he had Ranger in the Ruins. And he does have another game, but it's licensed, so he hasn't been able to release it probably. He's got one based on Quest for Glory, which sadly is the one that I'm most interested in because I actually played that video game from Sierra. Hey, you know, we're going to talk about Microsoft later on in the episode. They control Sierra now because that's an Activision property. Spoiler. Spoiler alert. Well, they will control it. So moving on to another item, we had an email from Jonathan Morel who wrote in to us about our Hall of Fame discussion that we had on our last episode. We were talking about the Pinball Industry Awards Hall of Fame, which was open to the public voting, and what we would pick. You did it live. Did it live. Bill O'Reilly style on the air. And by the way, that's closed now, so you can't go and vote anymore. But what happened is Jonathan heard that, and he wrote in, and I'm not going to read his whole email, but in a nutshell, the issue was he expressed concern about that 2000 to 2009 category. You know, where we talked about like Terminator 3 or World Poker Tour. Right. You know, my assumption will be, I think everyone's assumption will be because Lord of the Rings won last year. That Simpsons Pinball Party is kind of the next biggest one that they had. And what Jonathan noted was that he was really concerned that after like this one and next, so basically after like three years worth of Hall of Fame, is there really any worthy games left? Should the Pinball Industry Awards continue to allow the Hall of Fame to go on for 2000 and 2009? Because in his mind, he was guessing that Simpsons Pinball Party wins this go-around. Then next year would probably be Spider-Man. And then after that he starts to think it might get to be a bit of a problem What do you think I think he got a valid point I think it might go a hair longer but even that would be tough to see based upon what actually in there
    20:08
    Because, well, let's see, what else? What all do we have in this 2000 to 2009? I mean, beyond what he named Spiderman and Simpsons, World Poker Tour would probably be the only other. And it wasn't a successful game No When it came out It's become popular In part I think because Kiefer did a really deep rule set with it But I mean you've got stuff like CSI 24 Sharky Shootout Striker Extreme Pirates There's some games in there that I like And in Jonathan's case he names some stuff Like when you start looking at 2010 to 2019 Look at how much better the games got. Yeah. Even just with Stern, look at how much better they were.
    20:55
    And so what I can say is, yes, I agree with Jonathan. I agree with you. Yes. In fact, the committee that is managing the Pinball Industry Awards, we have had a couple very short conversations. This has come up. This has come up about assuming the Pinball Industry Awards continues to do a Hall of Fame. it does not make sense to say let's say you did let's say we ran the awards for a decade and what eventually you're almost running into the situation where you'd be you'd give everything in everything would be in the hall of fame it's like that's true for any decade but it's a big problem for the dark days of pinball which is that decade that is the worst decade we have because they do not it does not deserve right have well because that entire that entire span 2000-2009 is only one manufacturer that meets our criteria.
    21:49
    And he's right. I mean, it was up until 2008, Stern was really strong. It's just not a good decade. So I do not know what the ultimate solution will be. It seems like, and of course, the committee that works on this can change every single year. But the current thinking, all I can say is, and again, we haven't had a lot of, because this is not this year's problem. And that's what the committee focuses on is this year's problem. And mostly some very basic stuff about what's going to happen next year. But broadly speaking, yes, no one disagrees that we're going to have to cut off the 2000 to 2009 at some stage before addressing that with any other decade. We're just not sure yet when. I would say probably 24 at the outside. yeah that gives you two more years yeah i i would think probably we wouldn't go further but i'm one voice right but but yeah no everyone no people don't want to get get to the point where you're mad you got to get in there you got to be that voice you got to drive it you got to succeed you got to show people even if i stay on the committee funnel your power bend them to your will some people have that strength of will with it but of course after all the work that I've done this year on it I'm just like can someone else just be on the committee next year instead of me so I don't have to I mentally envision you like that slap video where the guy's slapping the kids and starts slapping all the people the thing 24 is the end yes I'm sure that will be what happens But anyway, so thanks, Jonathan, for writing in, and those are our thoughts about that.
    23:37
    Finally, got to end Pinball with Rumor Corner. So, so many rumors out there, you know. It's so hard to choose which one because, you know, I do drip feed these. I don't just dump all the rumors. That'd be rumor info dump. We're not doing that. Rumor info dump. We're not doing a two-hour episode of me telling you every rumor. Heck no, we're doing a two-hour episode talking about Microsoft. That's right. spoilers surprise so so this rumor corner you know i'm kind of back with haggis people are probably like why was dennis bringing up american pinball so much besides it being a i thought a decent analogy for what i was trying to get across i actually had ap on the mind because of rumor corner so everyone knows that dennis nordman after deep root went over to american pinball it was really hyped up by them last year. We know that he's going to be working on several games, including licensed games. Yet again, name dropping the last pinball show I was on. We actually talked a little bit, very briefly, because at that time, I was thinking that Nordman's and AP's next game would be one of his, and that I thought it would be Sherlock Holmes. They renewed that. And that's not an interesting rumor, because they renewed the trademark or license or whatever patent or whatever they have because you know that's a for for like their font choice or whatever because that's one of those you can be original because you don't have to it's not it's not really original though it's not you know it's not an original theme but you don't have to pay a licensed public domain right so and actually even though i don't consider this original by like any legal definition what i'm now hearing is the original kind of like black Knight sort of rage to a lot of people was original, even though it's tied to a license. It's a pinball license. But people think that way. So anyway, I'm rambling through it. But the rumor is that I heard the next game is the sequel to Whitewater. So I could see why people think that's original. No, technically, you're going to have to get if you're going to call it Whitewater. And maybe they're not. Right. Remember with Deep Root, there was when they did the whole like slide deck dump of all their licenses the whitewater sequel was like called yeti something right right so that might be what they're doing to actually keep it original i haven't heard a name i've i've tipped it to call it whitewater or like the abbreviation on on pin side for whitewater is like wh2o or i've seen people abbreviate it like that so i want to say it's wh2o2 but i'm not sure we're going to do white hydrogen peroxide because now that would be a very interesting set of rules like you're I'm just imagining you're on a raft of hydrogen peroxide. And you're like, don't get it on you, everything. Your teeth will be too white. It's horrible stuff. So anyway, but that's the rumor, is they're going to do the Whitewater sequel that a lot of people apparently want for some reason.
    26:37
    So that's what I'm hearing. Okay. I mean, it's, sure, why not? It's one of those things that it's. And if the rumor's true You won't have to wait long Because supposedly it's the next game Like the one we're waiting to hear Hopefully by TPF? I don't have a date I have no idea But here's the thing I'm at the point That if the company's name isn't Stern We'll see a pinball machine When we see a pinball machine It could be next week, it could be 15 years from now It could be never Yeah, I mean it's sort of a it's a given at this stage stern's the only one with any sort of consistency on their release schedule um i mean even when other companies say give you a date less than half the time does that date actually well and that's where again american pinball right up there with jersey jack they they have spokespeople and in jj peace case is jack winery and in a peace case it's david fix that have been going out there repeatedly with very aggressive production proposals where both of those companies through them have been talking multiple games a year. Honestly, I'm getting really sick of it. Yeah.
    27:52
    Anyway, with this, American Pinball has been talking doing a couple games a year, two or three. I think they claimed three. Give me one game a year for a couple years. I'll be happy.
    28:06
    I think a lot of people would be. But anyway, are you not room retained i am no not really no well look they can't all be winners so now i'm just disappointed speaking of winners is a good transition into the video game uh segment uh we did have a couple emails these are separate emails but they're both from chris chandler so one of them was just based off of our last episode he just wrote in actually wrote two emails about this to say uh to talk about yoku's island express so he wants us to know tony that it is fun and it is it is chill and he described it more as a metroidvania with pinball mechanics versus a platformer which metroidvanias have mild platform right but okay that makes it sound a little better a little better to you my the eldest daughter expressed interest she has not started playing the game yet but she has expressed interest and then chris also wrote in about a certain acquisition that I think you're going to spend a couple minutes. It's the video game. It's the entire video game section at this point. Well, it's hard to argue that anything is big. Honestly, I can't remember the last time we saw video game news this big. I can't. I don't think since we started the podcast. No. Well, and the thing is, is this is literally the largest video game purchase in history. Da-na-na, da-na-na, da-na-na. And for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, Microsoft has initiated the purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
    29:47
    I guess they saved some thanks to all those harassment claims driving that stock down. That would be my assumption.
    29:54
    Now, Microsoft has purchased a lot of game companies over the last several years. Oh, yeah. I think within the last 18 months, it seems like they've bought around a dozen. Oh, yeah. Because they're up to 23 total. But most of those have been very small. Right. Now, we joked at one time, several years ago, when they were doing some of their first purchasing, about them picking up somebody like Activision Blizzard or EA or Konami. Yeah, I know. For those that have heard the older EGP episodes, I used to get on the soapbox a lot. My big one was that they should buy Capcom. Right. Yeah. Well, they didn't buy Capcom. They went a little bigger than Capcom. Yeah. Because when you look at the overall sales in video games, Activision, Blizzard, and Microsoft are both in, like, the top five. So combining them together is going to push them up real high. I mean, yeah. No, they're – Yeah. It depends on what you're counting. Because, like, Tencent is in there. Yeah, because Tencent is normally considered number one when you're talking about overall size. But for 20 to 21 sales, Sony was considered number one with Tencent number two, Nintendo number three, and Microsoft number four. But those numbers aren't – I don't like those numbers because those numbers included like certain other companies and like number seven and number eight type range, like companies like Epic. But Tencent owns 40% of Epic. Right, right. So it gets a little nebulous. It's starting to get a little – because Epic is technically its own entity. Right. Tencent owns just enough that they're – so they're just not quite a controlling interest.
    31:53
    But they own enough that they have their own board members that specifically come from Tencent to set as directors at Epic. So it gets a little nebulous. The general consideration is that the Tencent is the biggest, and then Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Activision Blizzard are all in the top five. And like I said, the combination of these two is going to push them way up there. So we'll see what ends up happening, especially with everything going on at Activision Blizzard right now, because just the fact of this isn't going to stop the lawsuits. Those are going to go through no matter what.
    32:38
    Activision Blizzard does employ 10,000 people and moving that many people, and the sheer number of popular games directly under Microsoft's control is going to be interesting.
    32:52
    And a lot of the stuff that has been coming up has been talking about the exclusivity. I'm going to read a couple of statements from various groups right now real quick because this deal has to be approved by regulators. Yes. And that's not going to happen until second quarter of 23 most likely is everything I'm looking at. According to a Microsoft statement, Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company's culture and accelerate business growth. Once the deal closes, Activision Blizzard Business will report to Phil Spencer, which a lot of people think is pushing that Bobby will probably go away after everything closes, which makes sense. I would assume so.
    33:39
    As I've said, as a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand in hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams and all leaders to this commitment. We're looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams of Activision Blizzard.
    34:05
    So that's a direct slap because of the lawsuits at the current leadership at Activision Blizzard as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, yeah. And we haven't heard anything at least recently coming out of – I mean, you know, The closest thing was the stuff with Bill Gates, who was forced out of Microsoft apparently years ago in part because of some harassment stuff. Right. Which is different than what Activision seems to do, which is let them maybe be CEO. Yeah. But anyway. Support the harassers. Don't let them out. Yeah, support. In an investor call, Sadia Nadella, Microsoft boss, said that Activision had to continue to improve the lived experiences of employees and the progress required leaders who not only talk the talk but walk the walk. Again, that seems like a straight shot at Bobby. Yep. Another follow up is Upon close we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can with an Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass Both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard's Incredible catalog We also announced today that Game Pass now has more than 25 million subscribers As always we look forward to continuing to add more value And more great games to Game Pass The fantastic franchises Across Activision Blizzard will also Accelerate our plans for cloud gaming allowing more people in more places around the world to participate in the Xbox community using phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices you already own. Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a wide variety of platforms, and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward.
    35:39
    Game Pass and Activision Blizzard and World of Warcraft. That's the big thing I've been seeing is having World of Warcraft access through Game Pass. Yeah, I've been seeing more along the lines of just the putting Call of Duty as a day one Game Pass game. Yes. For so many people, there are a lot of people, it's very easy, I think, for those of us who are older, who have more disposable income to forget, there are some people that only get a couple new games a year. Right. And there's people that go and it's like Madden out of EA is something they always buy, and they always buy Call of Duty every year. Right. You don't have to spend $70 for Call of Duty Day 1. You can get it as part of your regular Game Pass subscription and so many other games. I mean, it's like, it's just, I do not use Game Pass yet. I have. I let it lapse. But everyone, I've never seen anyone disagree that it is the best subscription deal in gaming easily. It is. I used it for quite a while. I played a whole bunch of games on it and really enjoyed it. And then I let it lapse because I wasn't using it as much as I thought was worthwhile. I started playing some other older games and stuff, but it is an excellent, excellent deal.
    37:01
    I got a note from the press or from analyst firm Wedbush about the purchase. The game library affords Microsoft the opportunity to offer Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its Xbox Series XS console. but that opportunity may be foiled by antitrust regulators. We expect the FTC and the U.S. Justice Department to scrutinize the transaction and to determine the potential impact on Sony's PlayStation console sales should Activision Blizzard games be offered exclusively on the Xbox platform. Because Call of Duty has been the best-selling game over the last 18 years on PlayStation platform, we think that it's likely the regulators will restrict the terms of the combination and require Microsoft to continue to offer Activision Blizzard and perhaps other games to Sony under substantially the same terms that has been offered in the past.
    37:50
    That's not a surprise to me. And the exclusivity thing, there are a fairly large number of games out there that are coming out of Microsoft-owned studios that are still getting one-year console exclusives to PlayStation, even though they're coming out of a Microsoft-owned studio. Yeah, all past agreements were honored. Right, they've honored all the past agreements. I don't think anyone's worried that they're going to break any terms of any – now, this is my – and I am not an expert on regulation.
    38:26
    Personally, I think Wedbush is wrong. I don't. I think that this – I think this deal is going to go through, and I don't think there will be restrictions. You don't think so? Now, Microsoft might choose to do that, but no, I don't. okay so it's the most it was the best-selling franchise on but it's like so so what if there were no other games i mean what does this mean to me it's like when do we we don't go in and say mario sells too much for just nintendo right no i think the big thing is because call of duty has traditionally had such a tight tie with playstation to the point that even when they're with it that they are directly marketed as PlayStation games a lot of times, even when they have been multi-item compatible, they're still primarily marketed on PlayStation because that's how their contracts with Sony are set up. I think it might be more like what they've done with Bethesda, where certain games will remain as cross-platform, but they might take newer titles and lock them down. I would be amazed. I think and I could be completely wrong I would think that they probably more likely than not leave Call of Duty multi just because there so many sales on that on PlayStation That so much pure profit to them It would hurt them more to go exclusive than to leave that one multi while taking other titles and locking them down Like recently with Bethesda after the Bethesda purchase there several Bethesda titles that are coming out that they have now confirmed are going to be Xbox and PC exclusives Starfield, from the sounds of it, they're going to do the same thing with Elder Scrolls VI when it comes out. It is going to be Xbox and PC exclusive. Yeah, and actually I expect them to do it for all the Bethesda stuff. I do too.
    40:23
    To the bare minimum, do a one-year exclusive console release, but probably with everything. I think at some point – it's an interesting balance because you're very correct. In fact, that's often the factor that people ask about exclusivity with third-party because you're cutting your potential sales down when you do – I mean, like last gen, it made more sense to go ahead and say, I'll go ahead and do a PS4 exclusive because they just had so much market share versus Xbox that maybe you didn't lose all that many sales.
    40:58
    And I definitely could see Microsoft saying, you know, Call of Duty, because it's so popular already and it's been on so many platforms already, I definitely could see them saying, you know, as a cash cow, we'd rather go ahead and keep that multi-plat. I just don't think the regulators are going to make them. Right. There's so many because it's a bunch of it's about competition, right? Well, it's not just Call of Duty. Are there other shooters that are still available? Correct. Yes. You know, this doesn't affect Battlefield. This doesn't, you know, there are it's now Microsoft has done this before. Minecraft. They kept Multiplat. Which was very smart. And it did very well. So I easily could see them not bring Call of Duty in-house. But I just don't think the regulators are going to make them. Now, what I think is what they're actually going to probably end up doing and is the hints that I've seen some other people thinking and putting out as well is that they are going to take – because Activision Blizzard, knowing that Call of Duty has been their cash cow, has been slowly pulling other divisions and turning them into producing purely Call of Duty content. Yeah, they have like four now. And that's why they're able to put out one brand new Call of Duty game every single year. I will see that drop. I think they'll break some of those groups back off to doing the type of games they did originally.
    42:22
    And moving them back away from Call of Duty. And you might see Call of Duty drop to an every couple year release. Instead of having three studios that all they do is work on mainline AAA Call of Duty games. So you can drop one every single year. And then having a fourth studio that works on just mobile Call of Duty stuff. And then two other little groups that work on glitter and outfits. And all they do is make pretty stuff to sell as extra add-ons for stuff. I think we might see some of those companies break back off. Because they've got what? They've got Treyarch and several others. That's all they do. Yeah, maybe. The thing is that if this is going to be a big tentpole for Game Pass, people expect an annual Call of Duty. And so, now that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't achieve that with fewer studios. Right. But I, you know, normally my concern when you're doing something every single year is I look at like the rhythm game or the rock band style game genre or the Assassin's Creed's where it got oversaturated and the sales fell. But Call of Duty, for whatever reason, it seems immune to that. Right. And if that's the case, why give it up? And they seem pretty immune even to having bad games because a lot of their games that have come out haven't been that great. I haven't. They don't even review well, but they go, but they're very good. And maybe that's just everyone wants a multiplayer. It could be. All my friends play, and that's what I'm going to play.
    43:58
    Yeah, I don't know. The other thing on the regulations, why I've been so skeptical about what Wedbush is saying is that we know for sure that it's going to be PC also. You don't have to buy an Xbox console. Right. And Microsoft doesn't sell those PCs. So Microsoft's always able to say, it's not exclusive to our console infrastructure. we don't have a walled garden like sony does right and then because they've been pushing that for the last what yeah four years yeah it's uh phil spencer has made it incredibly clear that unless for some reason there was a game that could only work on a console for some reason like everything comes out on pc everything that's they want you to get the service they want they don't care if you buy you know really really the xbox is just to coddle people like me who want to play on their tv It's not like Sony Where they need to drive console sales Microsoft doesn't care if you buy their console or not As long as you're in their ecosystem And you will be in their ecosystem And I'm in their ecosystem Because I play Microsoft games That's the big ace in the hole They never lock you into their hardware As long as everything continues to come out on PC And I'm sure they'll promise the regulators that Yeah, this will always be available on PC All of our stuff is I just don't see it. It's diversified then because you're not stuck having to buy Microsoft equipment. Right. Yes, you have to buy a Microsoft game, but that's true. You'd have to buy the game no matter what unless you pirated it. You'd have to buy a Microsoft game even if it was available on PlayStation. That's where I think. I don't think regulators are going to look and have this pity party mercy thing for Sony, which is not exactly like Sony doesn't have a whole slew of exclusive third-party studios beholden to them. And based upon the 20 to 21 game sales numbers, this combination is still not higher than Sony.
    45:56
    It's still like $2 million under Sony. Yeah, there's nothing. Yeah. There's a little nothing buy. There's a little nothing. Now, when Microsoft buys EA, I don't know. Right. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, here, actually, I've got the list. Here's all of the current owned game studios for Microsoft.
    46:18
    343 Industries, which is who they had take over Halo when Bungie left. Of course, Activision Blizzard is pending. Alpha Dog Games, which does mobile and tablet games.
    46:31
    Arcane, which is Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop. That came out of the Bethesda purchase. Bethesda Game Studios, obviously the Fallout games. Zelda Scrolls, Starfield coming up, Compulsion Games. They did We Happy Few. Yeah, the smaller one. Yeah, they're one of the smaller ones. Double Fine. They did Psychonauts. Double Fine is more of a cult favorite company because they're kind of smaller games too. Right, but their games are huge. Specifically, the Psychonauts games are enormously huge and popular.
    47:02
    id Software, Doom and Quake. Yeah. And the revamped franchise. They both – it was what I would consider to have been – it's more like they were a legend than a – but both Doom and Quake in the modern era have been very popular games. Right. Because, I mean, I remember – Especially Doom. Yeah. I remember in 97, we attended QuakeCon. Yeah. The second one ever, I think. Yeah, the second QuakeCon. That was when they were huge and everything. Then they kind of dropped away. But they've come – especially the new Dooms have been huge. Yeah, I know. They're really good. It's just that style of shooter, the new formula that they kind of clicked with, where it's an always-keep-moving shooter, and they're not a lot like that. No, there's not. So Doom is really, yeah.
    47:51
    That's a big one for them. Yep. InXile Entertainment, they made the Wasteland games, which are basically kind of Fallout-y games and the Bard's Tale games. Yeah, I haven't played that. Machine Games, they did all the Wolfenstein remakes. They're part of the Bethesda pickup. That's another decent one. Yeah, the new Wolfenstein games are huge. Obviously, Mojang Studios, that's Minecraft.
    48:15
    Ninja Theory, Devil May Cry. Yeah, this is one where a lot of Japanese game fans kind of excited that maybe Microsoft will finally have something interesting from the East. Right. Because that's kind of been an area that I know frustrates a lot of people who are fans of Japanese games. Right. They also do those Hellblade games That have gotten so popular lately Obsidian Entertainment Obviously The Outer Worlds Dungeon Siege 3 KOTOR 2 Yeah They've got quite a pedigree And I think they were probably surprised At how well Outer Worlds did Because that might be a new franchise We know there's a second one coming I think that's a new franchise for them Yeah, I mean, I'm an Obsidian fan. I've got both Pillars of Eternity. I've got Tyranny. I've got... And they made the good Fallout. Fallout New Vegas. Yep. They got screwed on that deal, but...
    49:17
    Great game, though. It was a great game. It's still my favorite Fallout of the modern Fallouts. Playground games. They're the Forza Horizon studio. You know, there's the rumor... There was a rumor going around that they're actually, Playground is the ones working on the new Fable RPG. Really? Yeah, that they picked up a new team. Interesting. Which is surprising because they're known for car games. Right. Maybe the new Fable has horse racing. Yes.
    49:48
    Horse car racing. I wouldn't be surprised. Rare, obviously. Their big thing right now is Sea of Thieves But I mean they have Like half of Nintendo's exclusives in the N64 They did GoldenEye They did Rare is kind of in my view A wasted company I would like to see them try and exploit Some of that Again it's one of those they're more a legend Rare unfortunately Got stuck doing all the Kinect games When Microsoft tried to push the Kinect technology And so I think a lot of hardcore gamers kind of forgot about them. And then Sea of Thieves was an interesting idea, but I don't know how well it is. It seems to be doing pretty well. Is it doing well? Okay. Yeah, it seems to be doing pretty well. I've actually played it a little bit when I had Game Pass.
    50:41
    I can see. It's something that definitely would have been a lot more fun if I had, like, a bunch of people to play with me as well. Yeah, that's why I never looked at it. I thought, I don't know anyone who would want to do this with me, so I didn't bother.
    50:55
    Let's see, where was I? Oh, Roundhouse Studio. They did the Bruins series. I don't know them. Prey, the original Prey from 2006. Okay.
    51:04
    I've played that. The Coalition, who's the Gears of War people now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have Gears 4, 5. Yeah, very popular Microsoft staple. Tango Gameworks. They did Evil Within. They've got Ghostwire Tokyo coming out, which looks really cool. I loved the Evil Within games. I was hoping they'll do more in that vein of not actually calling it that. Right. The Initiative, they're working on a perfect dark reboot. A lot of people are excited about that. Interesting, though, you note that Rare isn't. Yes.
    51:36
    That is interesting. Turn 10 Studios, which are the Forza Motorsport side. Yeah, that's the hardcore. They're the Realistic racer. That's the Gran Turismo of Microsoft. Yeah. Undead Labs, they're the State of Decay people. They've done the first two State of Decays. State of Decay 3 is under production. If you've not played the State of Decay games, they are very fun zombie games. I think they get the right mix of the open world and, like, fortification. I think I accidentally asked for and got a different zombie game that wasn't that, that I didn't like. So I don't play it. The State of Decay games, I feel like, hit the target right on for that kind of thing.
    52:24
    World's Edge is a studio that actually, they don't produce anything. Their entire reason for existing is to manage the Age of Empires assets. Ah, okay. So they manage the Age of Empires and they manage the people who are hired to develop Age of Empires. Because there's a new Age of Empires under development currently. Right. I assume that'll be PC only but we'll see that's my guess Xbox Game Studios you know Microsoft Flight Simulator they also have like the Ori games and a whole bunch of other little stuff and of course is NMAX which is entire purpose is Elder Scrolls Online they have a solid and bringing Activision Blizzard in is just my assumption is they'll bring Activision Blizzard in and then they will break them into Activision and Blizzard again, and probably – and King, because it's Activision, Blizzard, King. So my assumption is they're probably going to break them back into their own separate parts once they get underneath the umbrella of Microsoft, because they did that with Bethesda. They broke Bethesda into individual parts. Well, now that it's not its own company, there's not necessarily a purpose to being Activision, Blizzard, King. Right. It doesn't serve any function. Right. So that will give them – And we never talk about the King portion of Activision Blizzard King, but it's Candy Crush. Right, right, right. So, I mean, it's not like it's minor. Right, right. But that's basically, again, to me, there are certain pieces on this that are just clearly like cash cow stuff. They'll keep that going, and it's not a question about exclusivity or pushing Game Passer. That will just be what it is. It just prints money. Yeah, it prints money for them. Right.
    54:05
    It's just every month, deposit, deposit, deposit. That's all that is. It'll help pay off the price of the deal eventually. Eventually alone it probably could. It might take a few decades, but it could. Right, but it's going to be there. Yeah.
    54:20
    We'll finish a few things up on the whole Activision Blizzard Microsoft talk real quick here. Phil Spencer in an interview did mention that they are looking at resurrecting some of the old Activision Blizzard franchises. So like the Spiros, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk Games, stuff like that. I know a lot of people wanted to see that stuff come back Yeah, I mean you hear about all the time When people talk about the nostalgia games Where stuff is coming back Tony Hawk especially is always Like one of the number one things you hear Crash, a lot of people like Crash Bandicoot My wife wants Spyro back so bad It's not even funny And you know Guitar Hero I always did Rock Band I never really did Guitar Hero But that being said It's been a whole gaming console generation Where we basically didn't do The plastic instrument games It might be able to bring them back now I don't know I'd wait until we're definitely After the pandemic Well I wonder about licensing issues In this day and age It might be too much because So many games are Twitch streamed And that game is just You're going to lose a whole segment of what would honestly be a good... I mean, games like Rock Band and that, that would be a great streaming game. But with licensing, I would think... Yeah, but how many people buy games only because they want to stream them? Is that a big enough chunk of the overall... I don't know. I mean, I know a lot of people... I mean, I've gone and streamed before, but I'm a loser. It's like no one cares about my audience level. Right, but a lot of times a game's popularity can be direct... You can directly draw a line to how popular... Sure, sure. That is a good point. I didn't think about that. Because a lot of people, the first time they see a game is when they watch somebody stream it. And it can go from, oh, I've heard about it or whatever to, oh, my God, I've got to play this game. I've purchased games because I watch people stream it. I'm like, this game is awesome. That's why I have Satisfactory, even though it's in early access. But Guitar Hero is a known thing. Like most people have touched it before, so they don't. It's not the same as like trying to excite people about Among Us or something where they've never heard of it before. Right. So I don't know. Maybe. I think the question there might also be is how well is Rock Band doing? Because I know a Rock Band came out in the last year. Yeah, I don't know. How well did that actually go? I don't know. And they might not want to do that one anyway just because there are the peripherals and you'd have to arrange for the – Microsoft isn't really big in building a lot of – It was under prior leadership where they were doing like the Windows phone and stuff. And it seems like they've really moved – other than the Xbox consoles are a rare exception to them regarding they seem to have foregone building a lot of hardware. Yeah. Really focused on software and cloud.
    57:11
    Bobby Kotick did host a video conference, what they call a fireside chat. It was supposed to be a 30-minute. No. Well, there was a dumpster fire. It was supposed to be a 30-minute. There was supposed to be some questions put in beforehand for some Q&A. He apparently showed up seven minutes late to it. It lasted 16 minutes, and he left without answering a single question.
    57:35
    Fireside lecture. Yeah, he didn't really address any concerns about the takeover lawsuits. The reports are he made a lot of jokes and talked about being committed to remaining in his role. And just it was nothing big. It was a complete waste of time.
    57:55
    He did anger a lot of his people. He did an interview recently where he talked about the declining stock prices, and he specifically blamed Blizzard for it because of Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4's delays, which has no mention of everything else that's going on. Also, that made a lot of anger because there's a lot of reports coming out that he is directly responsible, especially for Overwatch 2's delays? I saw the headlines. I did not read the articles. It sounds like someone has accused him of meddling in the development process. I read some of the articles about it. Apparently, he specifically stepped in during Overwatch 2 development, and he would basically have the entirety or the majority of the Overwatch 2 team pulled off of working on Overwatch 2 to work on something like a special project for Overwatch.
    58:54
    And then three weeks later, he'd come back and tell them, nevermind, it's canceled. Go back to Overwatch two. And he apparently did that multiple times. Okay. So they lost months of development time working on special projects that have never been released in raw canned that he specifically pulled their, their team off of their job to do something else. And now he's blaming them according to the articles and according to the report that he's, that he's blaming them for all the problems. Also My last little bit Mike Ybarra, the sole leader of Blizzard Dennis can see I made a lot of smart-alecky comments I'm not actually going to repeat them Yeah, there were a lot But he put out a His first public Discussion of the year He acknowledged that 21 was a rough year And that priority for Blizzard was going to be rebuilding Trust in the brand and working on making a safe inclusive work environment I sorry I've seen these movies. No, it's Ricky. I didn't put in cooties in here anywhere. I know. I was very smart-alecky when I wrote this up.
    60:07
    He's also mentioned that they've added several management positions designed completely around working on culture and HR issues and that they're aware that they need to deliver content on a more regular basis and innovate both in and beyond their existing games.
    60:25
    That's going to be rough because they've only got two games in production right now and both of them have been delayed until 23. Yep. So I don't know what they're going to do short of pulling some people and trying to shore up some direct Overwatch content to try and keep what fan bases left. That's about it. Maybe they could do some stuff in-game on World of Warcraft.
    60:51
    Right, but World of Warcraft is hemorrhaged so bad, I don't know how much they can do to save it at this point. I don't know.
    60:59
    Maybe, you could argue, if people leave, they could possibly come back. Yeah, and that's always the possibility. But anything really substantive that would bring back the losses would have to be a game release worth of content, though. So that's not going to happen in a year. Maybe they could tweak some stuff. Again, I haven't played World of Warcraft in so long, I don't know what minor thing might work. Maybe that is nothing. I don't know.
    61:24
    It's been even longer for me since I played World of Warcraft. We'll see. I think basically they're just going to have to hold on until Overwatch 2 drops and Diablo 4 drops. I think they might be better off putting,
    61:38
    doing things to increase the, how rapidly they can get those games out without causing massive crunches.
    61:48
    But also in the final bit of thing is a Lego announced that they are suspending their overwatch to Lego. So we're supposed to start dropping next month and that they are currently reviewing their partnership with blizzard due to blizzards internal practices. so well the Microsoft deal will probably be done before Overwatch 2 is ready so given that I bet you they'll end up releasing it eventually because of new management and I do and maybe naive of me but I do think Microsoft will clean this up clean this shop up oh I think so too because I think I'm one of the people that falls under the heading that I think a big part of the problem is management. And I think once this is done, Microsoft is going to come in with a hatchet and they're going to dump the management. They're going to tear it apart. Yeah. I mean, normally it seems, and this is, I believe, you know, lessons learned from Microsoft's past, like with what happened with Bungie and such. But generally, if things are going well, they like to try and preserve the corporate cultures of the studios to allow them to be creative and not be heavy-handed on it, but when you've got a PR problem that ties to this, you've got to go in and get rid of the... Again, some of these high-level people like Bobby, they're going to get these huge stock paydays. I think they're going to walk away. I don't think they'll need to be hatcheted. They're going to be like, yeah, I know. I'm done. Bobby, actually, he should get something around $300 million.
    63:23
    Is the numbers that are... They'll take their stock options. which will be, you know, once the deal goes through, that will be liquidated out of the loss of the company, and they'll go off into the sunset, I guess. Yeah. Lucky for them. I guess the big question I would ask, you know, after you're getting through all of this, do you think that this is a – do you think Microsoft buying Activision is good for gaming or bad or neutral? Do you have a thought? Because that's the big – obviously, that's a big discussion that everyone's having. Right. I think that for the workers, it's good. For the stockholders, it's definitely good. I think for the general gamers, I think it'll be all right. I don't think it's going to be a big problem. They've shown their work to me for how they handle these type of things before, and it's done good and there's still good games coming out.
    64:25
    Yeah, this isn't the Microsoft of the Internet Explorer scandal era. Right. I know some people like to still treat it like that. Right. And, of course, it is a corporation. It's going to do what's in its corporation's best interest. It just seems to me that Microsoft has realized, especially since Phil Spencer took over gaming, actually that's what I directly attribute it to, that he's like, if you do these things that are good to gamers, it's good for our business. Right. So let's do it. Our interests align. Just trust me. And clearly, Microsoft as a company has given Phil more and more trust as he's, I guess, walked that sort of walk. Right. And it's worked for them. Yeah. And again, as someone who, you know, last now three generations on the console side have only gone with Microsoft, I've wanted to see them do well. I mean, I went through 360 where they were very competitive with Sony, then the Xbox One where they were not. And those were some dark times. I'd say most people would probably win on this The only real people that would lose Are people that only go in on the Sony console Obviously they're going to have to evaluate Whether that is a strategy Because this doesn't hurt PC gamers It doesn't hurt Xbox gamers It doesn't really hurt Nintendo gamers Because they ever since the Wii Have moved away with keeping up on the hardware They don't have the systemic power To run all these third party things Yeah, no, Nintendo is their own special Nintendo thing. Yeah, they're their own Nintendo thing. So Sony, now, as someone who is, you know, I guess on the console war divide, as much as it happens, you know, it's like, of course you want what you've bought to do well. I'm sure people who have bought PS5s are pretty concerned. I joked in a, not in our Discord, but in someone else's Discord that, well, look on the bright side, Sony fans, I imagine here soon it's not going to be hard to find a PS5 available. enjoy your hide in the tall grass games well because I mean obviously whether or not Call of Duty remains multi-platform let's set that aside so much of this will not so much of the rest of it will not be multi-platform that it's obviously it's finally personally I thought Microsoft had finally more than achieved proper parity with Sony especially once they had me once they got Bethesda Because I'm Bethesda's servant. Yes. Let me. Yes, Bethesda, I worship on your altar, except Fallout 76. What were you thinking?
    66:54
    But with this, it's finally what I thought back in the dark days. What I was always arguing is like, Microsoft, you are so much richer than any other gaming company because of everything else that you do. Why don't you just buy your way out of this problem? You're the Yankees. So hire the Mickey Mantles. Quit playing by the same rules You have money So buy your victory And don't be ashamed of it Just buy it We just want games We just want good games to play Don't care how you So early on they were picking up all these studios But so many of them were small And of course there were all these lag times On getting anything Not just getting exclusives Getting anything out of them And now finally They were at it before this And I don't know I've seen discussion online about It's interesting because some people have long defended Sony's – I mean, Sony has had some really – and still do have some really, really exciting exclusives. They do. Like Spider-Man, Event Horizons, all of that stuff. It's interesting to see them – and I get it because, of course, if you don't own an Xbox and you don't game on a PC, yeah, it sucks for them. But they defended it when Sony did it for a decade plus. Right. And that's all Microsoft's doing is just taking your favorite stuff and making it their own. This is the way. And here's the thing is I actually like Microsoft better for it because I'm a PC gamer. Yeah, and that's the moral high ground that they, again, works to their advantage for their Game Pass stuff and all of that. But that's the moral high ground they get to cite is we don't wall you into our console garden, and Sony does. Because I eventually bought a PS4 when I could get one on sale very cheap to play Spider-Man and Event Horizon and stuff like that. and not a bit Horizon, Horizon Zero Dawn and games like that.
    68:53
    But honestly, I played those games and I enjoyed them and I've not touched my PlayStation since. Right. And that's always been my issue. Like I've been like Horizon looked really good to me, but it's like, I couldn't rationalize paying a few hundred dollars. And it's on PC now. For a game experience. Finally. And from what I hear, it's a very good port. Good. But, so yeah, I mean, overall it's more of a i think it's more of a neutral it's very good for microsoft and people into the microsoft infrastructure um there was never any threat like it's it's it's neutral for pc gamers because they'll still have access to this stuff there was never like there is no threat there was no threat of sony acquiring activision now i've seen some people saying that sony needs to respond to this i don't see how i don't i don't know i think uh someone uh on youtube had a video where they were like arguing well maybe sony could acquire square or capcom like i don't think someone could afford i i think his argument was that they thought that might be on the upper limit of what they could do but i mean clearly we've seen at least a few exclusives timed or otherwise between square and sony right capcom and sony and you know i remember just before this announcement about the Microsoft acquisition came out, there was a thing about how Phil Spencer had weighed in, unconcerned would be the way I would describe it, regarding the announcement that Sony was expected to soon be announcing their version of Game Pass. Right. It ain't going to be as good. It can't be. And maybe that was their plan, was let's work with Capcom, let's work with Square. It's just not enough. It's not enough. They don't have strong enough franchises. And remember, we spoke about it a few episodes ago that Square came out at an investors meeting and flat out said, because there had been rumors of somebody attempting to purchase Square. And they came out and said those rumors weren't true.
    70:50
    I never thought it was Microsoft. Right. But maybe it was Sony. I mean, Square, maybe Sony's in a better place than I thought. I mean, their gaming division is doing very well. The thing that I read, though, recently, I think it was last week, was that Sony, as a company, about 30% of their money is coming from the gaming division. Right. Microsoft doesn't like that. I don't want to say it's a pittance. Phil's really built it up, but it's like Microsoft doesn't need their gaming division. There was a time before Phil Spencer came in where a lot of people thought Microsoft would just spin off Xbox and be rid of it rather than having it because the guy before – I already forgot his name. The guy before Phil was – they took the Xbox One and they were promoting it as a multimedia device to watch TV, and that was the push. And I remember seeing this stuff. I'm like, I'm a gamer, and you're making me not want this.
    71:50
    There were controversies about the DRM and all of that. But the thing is where it's now working to their – and of course the internet is a lot further along now than – speeds are better. There's less throttling, less caps for people, higher caps or caps being eliminated. And so the circumstances have changed. So now Microsoft has been pushing this cloud-based service and it works for people more. And Sony can't just go back and go, hey, look, you can go to the store and buy a physical copy of this. I don't even like physical copies anymore because I have to remember to put the disc in. Yeah. Well, and let's understand. I mean, and as a PC gamer, I haven't done physical copies in. Yeah. I mean, literally, I think one of the last times I bought a physical copy of a game as a PC player, I took it home and I put the disc in my computer, closed the CD-ROM, it auto ran, and it asked me to log into Steam.
    72:47
    Did it? Yes. But, yeah. Yeah, no, it's the thing. And then I think, and I mean, there is a cloud gaming out there now. Google Stadia is trying to do it now. Right, right. But they don't have the games that, when Xbox drops a full-out cloud-based, because they've talked about cloud-based gaming. They even talked about it in their stuff that they, in their talks about the purchase of Activision Blizzard. some of them they talked about it but when when when they pull the trigger on something like that because of the gaming that they have access to compared to the stadia it will overwhelm the problem is i think there are still too many people who are locked behind the throttling it's yeah it's i mean and there's a i mean we're we're in a very lucky area for for high fiber internet and it's yeah that's not i mean i've already seen some people are like yeah at some stage they wouldn't be they'll expect that the xbox will become an hdmi stick that you plug into which wouldn't surprise me and you can integrate with your control yeah eventually but for the time being it's like no the the changes have been that it's so easy to download a game now but you want to run it locally for a lot of reasons and that's that's a bigger hurdle to get over but the but because it's uh it's not a big deal where you're like for most people aren't waiting two days to install something anymore. Right. Having Game Pass, it's just like with Steam, just going online, laying a download, and then it's on your hard drive or your solid state and you're good to go.
    74:25
    People like that because then they don't have to manage it anymore. And it's also nice. If we're going on vacation, I can take my Xbox or my PlayStation or my Nintendo Switch dock. and when we get to the hotel, I can plug it into TV and I don't have to try and set up stuff. I've got games downloaded and I can play them. I've got a laptop that can handle games. Exact same thing.
    74:54
    We'll see. I think it'll be interesting going forward. My last question before we leave and abandon people after talking about video games forever and ever and ever and ever. Who do you think the next target for Microsoft should be?
    75:11
    My assumption is probably nothing's going to happen until this is completed So we're looking at probably 24 or 25 I don't think they are targeting anyone else right now I mean, logically speaking, I'm like, they shouldn't have to pick up anymore Surely this is enough I think they pick up Sony I was talking to someone about Was it you? I was talking to someone about They thought that the Japanese rules Prohibited it Yeah, they wouldn't be able to And even if it was allowed in Japan It wouldn't be allowed I don't think US regulators would allow it I would think it would be more likely That Sony and Nintendo would try and merge In some kind of way I mean, I can see that It's all weird Because Sony is more than just video games Nintendo isn't But Sony I can't imagine them ever spending off PlayStation because they need it for, like, Sony Pictures and stuff is not doing great. Right. They need the gaming division to float the rest of the company. Right. So, no, I mean, I guess if Microsoft, so, yeah, because if they were to pick up someone, and I don't know if it becomes more complicated outside of other Japanese options, you know, back in the 360 era, maybe they've forsaken this now, but Xbox has never really been able to get a foothold. That's why I always argued for Capcom is it's a relatively low valuation company compared to something like Microsoft. And it's got games that I think you have people that are just like they just have to buy it. Yeah. They'd have to buy it. They want Street Fighter or whatever. So, you know, I think a game, a company like targeting some other genres. Like Phil has talked up a lot about one. So what's missing from the Microsoft portfolio? They don't, they're not, these are all lesser genres, of course, versus like shooters. But they have killer instinct under the Rare branding, but they don't really have any other fighting games. So picking up a big fighting game studio would be to their advantage. Most of them are Japanese.
    77:06
    Shoot-em-ups, most of them are Japanese. Picking up a – honestly, Cave they could buy with the Lint pocket change, whatever they got. Let me see what I got. It's a super teeny company, but it's beloved and worshiped. I was talking to someone. They wished Microsoft would pick up Konami and fix them. Konami would be a good one. and fix them because aren't they focusing mostly still on like arcade games lately? Pretty much. They've shifted to the like arcade games. And Pachinko. And Pachinko and slot machines and stuff like that. Yeah, so they're making devices. So getting them to actually bring back those franchises, that would be a good move. Because, yeah, Konami, they put out, I saw an article a year or two ago. I was talking about all these like Konami is using their franchises in like slot machines and stuff like that. The only thing is with that is I wonder if Microsoft looks at Konami and they're like, we don't want to deal with all the hardware side of their business anymore. And obviously, I would say Konami probably wouldn't want to spin off. I mean, as long as they could still use the licenses and their other stuff. They could do like a Konami video gaming versus Konami slots gambling game. Right. I don't know. But I think you're right. I think Capcom, I think if they want to get their fingers into the Japanese market and the Asian market, Bandai Namco.
    78:42
    That's one. Yeah, I've thought about that. Lots of fighting games, lots of shoot-em-ups, lots of JRPGs, lots of beloved franchises, lots of licenses that are super popular.
    78:55
    But I think it'd be a huge purchase. Yeah. But I think if that was their target goal, was to get more influence in the Asian market, I think that or Square would be the obvious one. I think Bandai Namco would give them a wider breadth of entry. Folks can write in to us to let us know what they think Microsoft should buy next. You can always contact us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or you can send us a message over at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers, of which Instagram occasionally actually gets something. Sometimes. But it is what it is. so anyway we'll be back in two weeks and maybe we'll be telling you about what new thing microsoft bought i don't know it's possible but until then i'm dennis i'm tony goodbye everybody see ya