Latest / The #Backlog Breakdown / headlines and hot takes: may 2026 edition

Transcript

headlines and hot takes: may 2026 edition · The #Backlog Breakdown

• 0:21
  Hey guys, what's up? It's Nate and it's. Well, it's not another bite size, it's actually another Headlines and Hot takes. I'm joined. Awesome. It wasn't supposed to do that. Josh will have to fix that in post. Or maybe he'll just leave it in because I'm not always nice to him and he likes to make me look stupid. But. Welcome to another edition of Headlines and Hot Takes. This time for May 2026. I'm joined by my friend Parker. You know, the international man of mystery and a long absent friend, but a much valued voice in our community. It's none other than Micah Gear. Solid Micah Hendrick.
• 1:01
  Hey, Nate.
• 1:01
  What's up, buddy?
• 1:02
  Thank you for having me around. It's good to be here.
• 1:05
  Yeah, yeah, it's good to have you. Have you on here, Parker. It is good to have you on here as well. But, you know, I, I talk to you way more often than I talk to Micah, so I'm going to be nicer to him in, in the hopes that he'll talk to me more often. But all that being said, we are here to talk about some of the bigger, or, well, maybe not bigger, but the in. In our estimation, the more important headlines from the last month, the month of May 2026. And Micah, I'm going to let you take point on this one because we're going to open up with the PSM vulnerability stuff. And this is just like you and I, sort of. We tune into the same news feeds, news cycles, and this one has kind of just been all over everything over the last week. So why don't you sort of give us, you know, kick us off here?
• 1:55
  Sure, yeah. I don't think you have to be a fan of sacred symbols though, to necessarily be aware of what's, what's happening here. It's kind of blowing up all over the place. But real quick summation of sort of how this all started or how it sort of bubbled up into the news again, is that a prominent PlayStation podcaster? I'll use the Kotaku headline. Colin Moriarty. He. His PSN account was. Was accessed via nefarious means. I was about to say hacked, but that's not what happened. It's not a hack. I need to definitely not use that word when we're talking about this conversation. Long story short, his account was lost. He. He got it back quickly through, you know, his connections with Sony and everything's fine with his account, but it sort of brought to light this vulnerability that PlayStation has with their PlayStation accounts. And basically it is, the way it works is that you can call up PlayStation support and you know, it's the typical sort of not great support line that you would sort of talk to once you, you know, get past all the, you know, everything else they're trying to get you to do, to not talk to a human being. But basically if you give that support person your email or the email address of the account you're trying to access or the username and then like some trivial information such as like the date of a transaction that you bought a game on psn, like something that you would find on a receipt, that person will then give you access to that account in which they can do whatever they want to with it, such as change your password, turn off two factor authentication, turn off your pass key, whatever the heck.
• 3:38
  Yeah.
• 3:39
  So this has been tested by those in the community and verified over and over and over again that you can call up PlayStation support and get into someone's account with very basic pieces of information, information that anyone that knows anything about infosec would know that you don't use this type of information to let people into this sort of stuff. Um, so it's sort of, it's definitely a huge problem. The, the, the group of people that are sort of going after the types of people like the Colin Moriarty of the world, it is, does seem targeted, it does seem like anyone is susceptible, but you're not necessarily in danger because, you know, someone has to just randomly want to, you know, do that to you.
• 4:27
  But, well, a guy like Colin though, he's, he's, he's a bigger figure. He's, and he's well known and his details, a lot of the details of his just public information. And so it's, he is at a, a significantly higher risk, you know, because he is again, he's sort of, he's, he's in the spotlight, so to speak. So I mean one of the, the interesting wrinkles is that this kind of all happened within a 24 to 36 hour cycle. By the time like he tweeted out like, hey, my account's been compromised. You know, I, I think the term that I've heard bandied around is social engineering. That's, that's what people are calling this is how like the, it's the, the technique. But you know, using this social engineering, you know, they get access to your, your account, they lock you out. But so, and, and Colin was just tweeting about the, the different steps and sort of like the progress and reaching out to different people and everything else that pretty much like, you know, over the course of a day or two. And shortly after his account had been compromised, though, his co host, Dustin Furman actually received a message in play, like in the psn, you know, through the app or whatever from Collins account, saying, you're next. So, you know, this does very seem like they were specifically targeted.
• 5:53
  Yeah.
• 5:54
  And since getting his account back, he's, he's basically made it like, he's, he's making it a crusade.
• 6:00
  Yeah, it just highlights the big problem that Sony is not protecting one of their most valuable assets and it's their customers. And in a lot of cases, their most valuable customers, the one who spend the most. You know, for example, two of the people that got their account compromised and they have not yet gotten it back are the number one and the number two trophy hunters in the world because they were of course targeted and they got it stolen and they have yet to get it back, literally, which is outrageous.
• 6:29
  I want to say. I, I was doing some reading about this. There was actually a French article that I read. You know, I didn't read it in French. You know, I'm not the, but you know, I use like Google Translate or whatever. But the journalist actually talked about how he, he talked to the person who stole his account and, and they gave him the details and this is kind of how it came out. Like, this is how they're doing it. Like the person who hacked his account told him, like, oh, no, I, I use this. And it was actually there was like sort of a, a taunting DM exchange at one point in time where the person was like, why, why don't you just reach out to support bud? Like, kind of like, you know, and it's like, so it's kind of interesting and I think it, it is one of those things where the, the most concerning part is, like you said, Micah, is the fact that like, their customers, which are their most valuable asset, their most valuable resource, are directly threatened by this. And this kind of compromises, like I just, as somebody who sort of splits that where it's like, I buy digital, sometimes I buy physical, sometimes it's kind of wherever I get the best deal. Like this actually makes a digital storefront, digital library a lot less appealing. So it's just one of those things and it's, again, it's shockingly easy.
• 7:54
  So yeah, of course, if you get your account compromise, there's all sorts of reasons why that might, you know, not be great for you. You know, you could be in it for like, you could just care about your save data, for example, and that's all gone. You know, maybe the games don't matter as much. Maybe it is. Of course, you know, for most of us it probably is that library that, that, that digital library you have, you know, or for guys like me and guys like Colin, it's the trophies. Like, I would hate to lose that, but. But yeah, that's really, you know, it's not the point about any one of us necessarily. It just. It's just that, you know, it's so easy to do and it's nearly impossible to undo it, which is part of the problem.
• 8:31
  And it's been going on for a while and Sony has not really. And until this Sony, there's been no real pressure on Sony to fix this.
• 8:41
  Yeah, and just I've learned so many crazy nuggets through this. It's like I learned that PlayStation will ban your account for certain things. One of those things being if you like start spamming trophies, like if you just start popping like platinums and stuff. And so what these guys will do is they'll go on and get your account and they'll start doing that. They'll spark. They'll start like popping platinum trophies with those whatever, you know, jumping taco games. And that'll get your account banned, like perma banned. And then it doesn't matter if you get it back or whatever because there's nothing you can do with it. Which is kind of crazy to me that Sony even allows you like, they, they sell you these games, the, the taco jumper games that, you know, you could be, you know, hanging out with your boys. Like, hey, let's get like, you know, 15 of these games and just have a stupid night and then start popping. Then you're banned all of a sudden. Like they let you just do that. It's their store. They sell you the games. What if I just wanted to buy 20 of those taco Jumper games and start playing them all night? That's going to get me banned. It's like just weird stuff like that, that Sony, you got to really figure it out. A side note real quick, and I'll, I'll let Parker talk about it or, or whatever, but the sacred symbols community, unprompted from Colin or Dustin or anyone else, like, guys in the IT world, in the infosec world have sort of rolled up their sleeves and sort of kind of done some digging on their end to see kind of what's. What's. What about some things on behalf of, of Colin. And the community and everything else. And some of the things that they are finding are kind of wild, according to Colin. Wild enough that he's not even going to say them on air and he's just passing it along to Sony. Like, you guys need to know this. So it's just kind of a wild story when you. And it's like they just picked on the wrong guy. It's like somebody's gonna hopefully probably shut all this crap down and him up these vulnerabilities because you Simply. It's like InfoSec 101. You can't give information like an email address. Like, let that be the defining key that gets you into things. But yeah, we've been talking a bunch. Parker, any thoughts on any of this?
• 10:50
  Well, I'm old enough, I got enough gray hairs that I remember the days when Sony accounts were hacked for real hacked. Like, I don't remember how long ago that was. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, something like that. It was a while ago and my account got hacked as part of that thing too. So this is like, to me, you know, not the first time that Sony has just sort of like biffed it when it comes to like, you know, keeping their customer information safe and like protecting their fan base and stuff like that. So it's a little concerning. Um, I'm not a huge trophy hunter, so I mean, I guess I'm maybe not going to be one of the people who's targeted, but it's not entirely surprising to me. But I don't know if you guys, you guys have done the research. So you tell me, like, is this, like, what's the motivation? Like, it sounds like Colin and a couple other specific people.
• 11:47
  Like, the motivation is to sell the account. So they're there. It's not just people like trophy hunters and guys like Colin. It's. It's people that Colin is learning. It's guys with like the oldest PSN accounts you can have. Like the guys who were there the day one with really short, like their, their PSN name is Rock or abc. Like, they got the first like basic use. Like, those are valuable apparently. I've got a real good friend of mine that I kid you not, his. His PSN username would be maybe one that they would want that was there on day one for PS3. So things like that. So I'm not saying, you know, the masses are vulnerable necessarily, but this is just kind of wild Junior scallop support and like, you know, Nate, I could probably take your account if I wanted to. Kid you not if I wanted to call PSN support and just do that
• 12:35
  right now, I'd rather you did it.
• 12:37
  So, so that's just kind of, it's just kind of crazy. So, so yeah, that's real quick. Last thing I'll say about it. This was been listening to Colin Moriarty since he, since his first day, his first episode on podcast beyond for ign. This was easily his best rant slash soapbox I've ever heard him on. It was outstanding. Language warning. Of course you know that with Colin. I think most of you do. But if you have time to give the two and a half hour topic discussion that I had on his podcast, listen, it is, it is well worth it. So.
• 13:13
  Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean I, it is, it is definitely in my queue. So. And I, I love, I do love a good rant, but we're gonna kind of, we, we have spent a bunch of time on this, so let's kind of the, the, the next one. I, I, this is very personal to me. I just kind of want to hit this real quick and it's kind of been all over the Internet as well. But Destiny 2 is getting sunsetted sort of all over the place that Destiny Bungie was canceling the the Next. There was supposed to be another set of expansions released after this current after. So the last expansions were Edge of Fate and Renegades. There's supposed to be another one after this. Those were canceled. The final update is going to happen June 9th and then the game is going to kind of go the way of Destiny 1, where it'll still be live but no new content will be added after this final patch. And, and, but then, then sort of also came out that like hey, a bunch of people are getting laid off. And it was one of those things where this is sort of an unfolding story. But it's kind of just been interesting. It's, it's not entirely unexpected. But what's kind of interesting for me is as somebody who Destiny 2 is probably one of my favorite games. It's in my personal top 10 currently. But it's kind of, to me, I'm saying like with this, this games as a service, perpetually online kind of game, it's you, you have to go into this knowing that it could go away at the drop of a hat. It's not likely to, but it could. And to watch some of the community just absolutely crashing out. Like there's a, there's a petition for Destiny 3 on change.org and it's got traction, I think last Time I looked at it, it was about 150,000 signatures. But the, the reality is, and people are, some of these people are like, there's 150,000 of us. Sony has to listen to us. And I'm like, dude, that's not even, this is a fraction of the numbers that you're going to need. You're going to need 3 or 4 million signatures for Sony to even sort of take this seriously. And even then that's, that, that's probably a pretty big lift. I think it's, it's one of those things where this game is very important to a lot of people, but unfortunately that it is. And there's just been stuff like I was talking to my brother the other day, like I don't think a lot of the fan base knows that. 90% of the fan base dropped off after Final Shape. Like basically they did the Final Shape content. They played that 90%. Nine out of every 10 users left the game after that. And, and Bungie has not recaptured a significant amount of that audience with, with the, the, the, the, the, the, the new content. So I'm just like, dude, like, I mean Destiny 3 might kind of get that, that, that attention, but it's unlikely. And especially the way that Bungie has just been mismanaged over the last several years, like it's just kind of like it's unlikely. So it's just, it's kind of funny and sad to watch these people just like the, the smoking is, it's potent, it is very strong stuff. So it's, it's sad. I'm bummed. It's kind of, it's, it's whatever. But ultimately this is just kind of one of those decisions where I think this is. Bungie kind of made the bed and now they've got to sleep in it. And it's not just management, I think like it's kind of, this is just if, if the fandom's being honest, Bungie has just been a studio that has problems. Like they've, you know, they, they made Halo, they did the Halo trilogy. They bought themselves out from Micro and from all reports, like that was a pretty prickly separation. They, they got bought by Activision. Activision. Then they separated from Activision and that was pretty prickly. And it's like they couldn't hack it as a third party independent publisher developer. And so they, they were actually, there are reports that they were on the edge of insolvency when Sony acquired them for 3. $6.3.6 billion a few years ago and that. And then with the report that Sony has come out and said that, oh yeah, the. The impairment laws, where Sony's like, basically, yeah, we overpaid by about a billion dollars, like three quarters of a billion dollars. Like, it's just. It's like, unfortunately, like, Bungie makes great stuff like the games, like, I've played marathon. It's excellent. But the reality is, I think this is a company that's big on vision. They only really execute when their backs are against the wall and they have a history of being fiscally irresponsible. And it's kind of like, I don't. You don't know what to do with it. So that's like. It's like, good night, sweet prince. There will definitely be a segment at some point in time, you know, just talking about like the sun setting, etc, but it sucks, you know, but whatever. It'll actually give me a chance to play other games.
• 18:22
  Didn't Bungie in the announcement mention that they're incubating games, plural? You know, like, they're working on stuff in the future? Am I wrong?
• 18:32
  Well, I. They say that in the twid. Or the. The twib, I think. Is it. It is now known as. But. Or maybe it is the Twid now. Whatever. They. They say that in the twid, but that was prior to the announcement of the layoffs. So it's like I. Well, what do I. I find it highly unlikely that they're incubating anything. And I think that everybody on staff is pretty much like on marathon duty.
• 18:56
  Okay, well, that's where I was going is like, do you think Destiny 3 is gonna happen at all?
• 19:03
  Not anytime soon. I'm not saying it's. It's completely outside the boundaries, like, of. Of possibility. And I think that, you know, given a few years, you know, give some time for people to get hungry for it again, possibly. Also, it does sort of seem like Bungie is kind of. Bundy is very much in sort of a. A bit of a descent. Like, they are. They are really struggling and I. So that would require them to sort of staff back up. And I think frankly, like, they're kind of in a weird spot where, yeah, they've. It seems like they. They're sort of running short on goodwill with Sony and there also seems like they're kind of running short with a fairly significant portion of their fan base, so. Well, it's. It's not impossible, but I don't think it's super likely anytime soon, so. But Parker, do you have any thoughts?
• 20:05
  I mean, it's unfortunate, but I'm. I'm looking at an article here from IGN that says that they don't have Bungie 3 actively in the works right now. So Destiny 3, that's basically Destiny 3. Yeah, I'm sorry, they don't have Destiny 3 in the works right now. So it's like, if you guys haven't been able to even start on Destiny 3 at this point, it tells me that you had no backup plan. Like Marathon was the backup plan and they spent a quarter of a billion dollars making it. And I think they're struggling to even recoup their investment on it. Maybe they'll get lucky and it'll have a long tail, but the fact that like they put out the final shape and then didn't immediately get working on Destiny 3 tells me that like, I don't know, I think it's like a really slim chance that anything's gonna happen with Destiny. Like they said, nothing, nothing even in the Destiny universe has been greenlit. And I mean Sony could have at any point like put together some kind of film or TV series for the franchise. So to me this seems like the fact that they don't have anything going on in the Destiny universe says that Sony realizes they probably way overpaid for Bungie and that this is just a vote of no confidence in the Destiny universe in general. Because if you remember when they first bought Bungie for 3.6 to $3.8 billion, part of that was Bungie said we want to be multi platform and we want the options for like film and television rights and all this other stuff because we want to expand the universe. Well, they've done nothing with any of that and there's not anything even in the pipeline. So to me, I think this says that Sony's just like, you know, crimping the cable on this one and getting ready to move on. I mean, they're writing down their losses on it and they're not allowing Bungie to really pitch anything successful for Destiny. So I don't think it looks good at this point.
• 22:00
  Well, just as sort of a little bit of an, like, just something that I read just the other day is that, you know, and I'm not going to get too far afield here, but the Hive is one of the primary antagonists of the series, right? It's like, you know, the Taken King, The Witch Queen, two of their biggest pieces of DLC and the franchise, Destiny 1 and 2, you know, dealt with the Hive and the Hive Gods The. The third hive God, Zivu Wrath, the Hive God of war. There's been some content that has dealt with her, but you haven't had a confrontation with her yet. And there was actually a leak. And I can't remember the source off the top of my head right now, but I read the article where there's a rumor that Zevu Wrath content was pitched, but instead what they did is they went with Renegades, which was the Star wars stuff. And I'm just like, oh my. Like it's. And again, this is sort of like somebody somewhere, whoever is responsible for that decision. Like they're not. They're not making decisions. Good decisions here. And so it's probably sort of best that like this thing gets put to bed for a while.
• 23:09
  Last thing I want to add real quick before we move on from Bungee, I did just. I had forgotten about this, but in. In Slight defense of Bungie, you know, it's like, you know, okay, you had Marathon. You haven't been working on Destiny 3. Like, what's going on? Like, what are you doing? It was just Marathon. You know, to be fair, it is a pretty well known rumor that. That they did have another game rolling and Sony pluck that game away from them and set aside a different team to work on it. So I think they did have some
• 23:40
  other project that's the project Gummy Bears or whatever is.
• 23:43
  Is that the one? Yeah, I forgot the name of it, but yeah. So that is apparently further along than maybe some of us think it could even be revealed maybe soon. But. But yeah, just slight sort of little nugget there for. In defense of.
• 24:00
  Of that would be. That would kind of really be interesting if I think the. The. The team was like Team LFG or something like that last time I. I heard about them. But that would be really interesting to see that maybe sort of making its debut or sort of whispers of that at this possible. This upcoming PlayStation Direct. So yeah, maybe.
• 24:22
  We'll see.
• 24:23
  We will see. Moving along here. And Parker, this is one that you sort of like pitched to us, but that, you know, and this is sort of a bit of a. An L or a bit of a rake or pie in the face of Sony and you know, where Saros has estimatedly, you know, sold about 300,000 copies, which is. It's. That's not great. I mean like Housemarque is a bit of a smaller studio. Returnal's a gem. But it does seem that Seiros hasn't really. It hasn't really done well. As far as like, you know, you know, consumer reception. In comparison though, Pokemon Leaf, Leaf Green and Fire Red, the, the re releases of those have sold like gangbusters. I have a link here. The Nintendo Life Con I gotta open. Thank you Internet. Yes, work with me. They're already bestsellers on the Switch ESHOP charts. I think now they're selling for about 20 bucks a pop. But I think the last numbers that the, the numbers that you threw out there is there's about combined 4 million units of those already in the wild.
• 25:42
  Yeah, yeah, this is, and this is after, I mean when they announced they were doing this and that they weren't putting this into Switch online like they were doing with a bunch of their other Pokemon games. But we're going to re release them and char players 20 bucks for like a 20 year old GBA game or whatever. Fans were like outraged on the Internet. But then they released the games and everybody quietly bought a copy. So it's kind of funny how that works sometimes. So yeah, they sold 4 million copies of it. I mean look, Soros was never gonna sell, you know, anything comparable to Pokemon. Pokemon is like one of the most valuable intellectual properties in the world. So it's not a direct apples to apples comparison, but it just shows how valuable and how deep Nintendo's intellectual properties are versus what Sony has cooking, which is like really thin right now. Like we just talked about Destiny just going down in flames. Soros is, you know, not the biggest first party title that they've got, but it's a significant one. You know, they shelled out for Housemark and you know, I think they spent something like it was rumored $76 million to make saros, so not an insignificant figure. So to have them in the first couple weeks only make back maybe 20, 25 million of that investment in it, it's not great. They really need to have a long tail on this to even get back to break even. Whereas it seems like Nintendo's kind of has an embarrassment of riches basically in their back catalog that they can just pull out and sell 4 million copies here, 4 million copies there. I mean, and this is at the same time that Procopia has come out and has become a console seller for Nintendo. Not even as a first party game for them, you know, and yet they're including it in the like pick three bundles that they're putting out there as like one of the options there. So people are buying switches just to play Pokemon Copia, which has also sold 4 million copies. So between the two of them that's 8 million copies of just Pokemon floating around in the world, you know, at a relatively cheap cost compared to some of this other stuff. So it's just the comparison is like really wild, you know, and they're two very different strategies about who the audience is and how to go after them and how much money to spend and what games to make and stuff. But man, Nintendo's just got it figured out in a way that Sony really needs to nail down.
• 28:11
  I would imagine that both FireRed Leafgreen and Procopia combined did not cost as much as 76 million to produce those games.
• 28:25
  I haven't seen actual numbers on that, but no, I would be shocked if that were.
• 28:29
  I'd be surprised if they were combined 50 million to produce both of those games.
• 28:32
  But.
• 28:33
  Well, I mean, the thing is that Leaf Green and Fire Red are going to be fairly low lift because they're essentially Force or remasters.
• 28:41
  Right?
• 28:41
  Like Procopia is going to be your biggest expense. And. Yeah, yeah, I don't see that being a huge development cost, you know, yeah, maybe 50 million total for all. But you know, that's just my guess. I think this also goes to show, Micah, you and I have had conversations about this though too. Is that the Sony fan base, one of the things is like, there's no first party exclusives. There's no first party exclusives. There's no first party exclusives. Like they're kind of like banging this drum about how there needs to be more Sony first party exclusives. And yet here's one. And the Sony fan base, like these people who are beating the drum about how there's no new games, no new games, no new games, they're not buying it.
• 29:29
  When is 5 generation going to start? When's it going to start? Games. Here's a great one. And they don't buy it.
• 29:36
  Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, there have been some criticisms about like, you know, the, the story and some of the execution, but Returnal was excellent. It's niche, like, and I get that. But like, it's just, it's one of those things where it's like. Parker, I think it's kind of funny is that everybody's losing their collective minds on the Nintendo side. But then again, these go to sell like 4 million units. Meanwhile, on the Sony side, where's our games? Where's our games? Where's our games? It's like there's one right here. It's good, but it's like, yeah, it's Just a weird disparity, you know, here where I'm just like, I don't get you people.
• 30:19
  Well, and there's a huge fan base too, right? Like there's, there's I think 90 million PS5s out in the wild. So that's a, that's a huge base to sell to for a new, you know, first party exclusive. There's only 20 million switch units out there and if you've sold 4 million copies of Fucopia, I mean that's a huge percentage of your user base that's buying your video games right now.
• 30:46
  So that's a, that's like a 25% attach rate or something like that. Yeah, it's like stupid high. It's stupid high. I mean and Nintendo's, that's, I mean though that's Nintendo's strong point, like the, their first party stuff. And it's like you said, Pokemon is really one of the strongest IPs in the video game space. So it's not really a shocker that these things did well. Again, it's just an interesting sort of like point of comparison. So another one that you sort of put on our table here though and is that Sony and Microsoft are both rethinking exclusivity, you know, in sort of a move that I think surprised a lot of people. Sony came out not too long ago and said that they're going to, that their first party titles are no longer going to be releasing on PC. They're going to keep releasing their multi, their multiplayer games on PC because like you know, so Helldivers, you know, the soon to be, you know, the soon to be Rest in Peace Destiny 2, you know, marathon, like those types of games are, they're safe, they're going to, they. And you honestly, you want those larger audiences at the install base like you want them at the off the crack. So that, that's a policy that makes sense. But yeah, they are sort of retreating from the PC space with their single player adventure games and it's actually. And sort of around the same time and I, I don't think it's in response but it's just, I think it's another thing where Microsoft with this new CEO Asha Sharma, you know, they're talking, they're reinventing the Xbox brand and there's Xbox reached out and there was a survey and a lot of the fan base in Xbox wants games to become exclusive again. I would say like there's kind of one of those things where it's a little bit of a Harder sell where it's like, it's like you said, there's 90 million PS5s in the wild. I think there's roughly 30 million Xbox Series S and X. I think those are the estimated numbers. And it's like effectively Microsoft is now, Xbox is now the biggest third party publisher. So there's kind of a weird push and pull where the, the fan base wants them to go the more exclusive route and on the same time, at the same time, you know, and again you kind of have to rethink all this stuff. So it's because Sony is sort of on their back foot going into this next gen where it does seem, you know, not, not financially like they're, they're kind of, it's like one of those things where they're doing fine but they are stepping on a lot of rakes, whereas Microsoft has a lot of really great energy kind into this and it's, it's kind of, it sort of reminds me of almost like the 360 era where it's like, hey, you guys could do a bit of a, a, a rebranding, a reinvention of yourself here. And I don't know, it doesn't make sense to, personally, to me it doesn't make sense for Xbox to go exclusive again. I don't think like they have the market. I think at, at best you're probably going to want to go with a limited exclusivity and see if like you can sort of siphon people like pull people back into your, your economy. But who knows? What are your thoughts on this though, man?
• 34:08
  Is that for me?
• 34:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
• 34:12
  And just making sure.
• 34:14
  Yeah, I mean, I'll ask Micah here in a minute, so sure, sure.
• 34:19
  I mean Microsoft is in this really interesting place where they don't need the video game business to keep them afloat. Right. They're a trillion dollar company and, and they've got swelling cash reserves and so they're in a very different spot than Sony or Nintendo or Steam or anybody else. I think the big question to me is how much do you guys really care about the console business? Do you want to be just the biggest third party publisher? That's fine. You can do that easy, no problem. You're already there, basically. Do you care about selling the Xbox brand and the Xbox hardware? That's a different question. And I think that fundamentally your process and your outlook is going to be completely different if you answer yes to that question. And I don't think we really know yet, but you know, from what we've heard from Asha Sharma, it seems like she's really doubling down on Xbox as a brand. She's pulled them away from the Microsoft gaming branding that they were going for. She's torn down the, you know, anything with a screen is an Xbox campaign that all the internal Xbox employees and hardcore players hated and, like, couldn't wait for the day that that campaign went away. So she's doing a lot of stuff to sort of like, placate the hardcore base. And they're saying, like, we've got another console, we're not leaving the console business, all this kind of stuff. So it's like, okay, I mean, you guys can do that, but you're gonna need exclusives to sell that box. Because what you've been giving people is tons of reasons why they don't need an Xbox to play Xbox games. So you're going to have to figure that out. And you don't have enough of a healthy base right now to launch you into the next generation. So how are you going to make those numbers work? It's going to come down to details on when they launch the new console, what the specs are on it, what the cost is on it, what kind of features are they going to have for it. There's a lot of questions there that I think are going to be really interesting to see how Microsoft answers them, because that's going to set a trajectory for them that's going to careen into the next decade easily. And, you know, Asha Sharma may want to do certain things with Xbox, but she's still, like, working through the legacy of Phil Spencer. And there were decisions that need to go into a console to make it that take years. And so she can't just turn this ship around overnight. So there's just a lot of momentum with the Phil Spencer era that she's going to have to deal with for probably a couple years before she's really, like, totally running the ship. So, I don't know. I think it's a really interesting, interesting question and I'm really interested to see what happens. I would love to see them keep Sony on their toes and be a strong competitor.
• 36:59
  So how about you, Micah, what do you think here?
• 37:04
  Yeah, similar thoughts. It's fascinating to see because it's like, well, how do you close Pandora's box? How do you put the genie back in the bottle? It seemed clear toward the end of Phil Spencer's era at Xbox that he was being his hand, was being forced by leadership to make something of these, of these games and these Acquisitions because the purchases on Xbox and Game Pass were not cutting the mustard. So they went to PlayStation and they found pretty good success, depending on the game. Forza huge, I think Hellblade, for example, less so. But, you know, that's just the nature of the game. So how do you go backwards? And my question is, is like a. Is. Does leadership not care now? Like, okay, they're like, Asha, you can do what you want. You know, like, why. Why does it change now? Like, if they wanted the games to be third party, then why are we changing it so soon again? Or is it truly in her control, in Asha's control now? And she is got her finger on that. She does have her finger on the pulse. And she's, you know, reading the fan base and all these things and changing Xbox to Capital X box and all that stuff. And is. So maybe things could happen. But yeah, how do you do that where, you know, people have faith in buying Project Helix next year and knowing that there's not going to be some wishy washiness going on again four years from now when times are tough and they only sell 15 billion project helixes, you know, so that's kind of where I'm at is that is just what is leadership telling Asha to do and how much free reign does she have and how much will she change? I feel like if they're just gonna go back, like, why didn't you just let Phil. I don't know. There's lots of questions there. But. But that's kind of. Yeah, I'm thinking of it from that same angle of like, how do you go back now that you've done it? And sort of what level of power does Asha Sharma have? And yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking about. Yeah.
• 39:25
  Yeah, it's definitely interesting. You know, one of my favorite things that's been said about Asha Shimer comes from recogue. It was. I think it was over on the SG bitcast. He basically said, I'm. I'm giving, like, I'm gonna give her the chance to disappoint me, you know, and it's. It's one of those things where there's. He's hopeful. Like, you know, I think like, that's the. I like when Microsoft is strong for a lot of reasons. One, I come from the three. Like, the 360 was a bit of a pivotal console for me. And so it's like, I have a lot of love for them. And I, I just haven't seen, like, there hasn't been like, A strong reason for me to go back. So there's. There's always kind of like the part where it's like hey, give me a reason to buy an Xbox kind of thing. Like, you know, and so there's. There's kind of like rooting for them in that sense. But also I like the fact that I like them to be a strong competitor. I like them, you know, to sort of. I like Sony. I like Sony best when Sony is scared. Because when Sony is scared they're a little smarter. You know, they don't, they don't get as sort of like fat and lazy. But yeah, it's sort of. It is kind of unprecedented times. She's. She's done some things that are really kind of exciting for the base while at the same time it's I think the question, you know, we've yet to sort of really see how much power and influence she does hold or if this is sort of like yeah, like she's just sort of sa puppet here, you know, so. But yeah, just sort of in closing here and you know we're running a little bit long so I just, I. I figured we'd pay a little bit of attention to it and just sort of at least notice it but Nintendo raised prices and it's one of those things where it's. None of these companies like raising prices but what kind of came out as recently here and it's going to take place in September 1st, but the Switch 2 will be increasing $50 in the US to 499.99. But it's, it's also. And it's going to be increasing in other regions. Japan's price increase actually takes effect on May 25. But one of the things that was said is that, you know, there was an apology to customers but like even this price increase basically doesn't cover the costs. You know, it's. It's kind of like one of those things where it's here. While we wanted to prior prioritize a wide adoption, it was challenging to bear the rising costs over a long period. This is from Furukawa, but as reported by Root. And this is. This comes from Nintendo Wire, but it says as reported by Reuters Japan. Nintendo cited the rising cost of memory and the weekend as main factors for raising prices. Rising crude oil prices which impact shipping are also a factor that might get worse in the short term. So it's like it's kind of inevitable that economic pressures are just sort of like rising. And it's like it's. We've Seen this from Sony. Microsoft has done this. Oh, I do think, though, that Microsoft, like, well, they. They reduced the price for Game Pass. You know, they sort of. They adjusted that pricing model. But it's kind of like one of those things where it's like this stuff is just going to get more expensive. It's. To me, I think the. The takeaway from this is absolutely wild that we live in a day and age where you are actually better off buying your hardware on day one. Like, you know that. To me, it's just like this is just like. It feels like we're living in the upside down, but. Yeah. So you guys have anything to add there real quick?
• 43:09
  Yeah, the only thing, I was just kind of making a bunch of faces that I was researching. I didn't realize that the price wasn't going up in the US until September 1st. That's interesting to me. Versus May 25th for, I think the rest of the world or Japan or something like that.
• 43:23
  Well, it's one of those things where I think the US is. This is like the strongest market for them, period. Like, we buy more of everything.
• 43:31
  Well, it makes me wonder, like, did you just have lots more stocks, stock in the US that you had kind of, you know, warehouses that were at good prices and you. You could sell. You could wait till September to do that? Or is it some weird ploy to like, sell stock, current stock? Because people would do that, you know, in anticipation of the prices going up and then knowing in September they would have Mario Odyssey 2 announced. So who cares? Yeah, I don't know. That's just interesting to me. But anyway.
• 44:00
  Yeah, well, Nintendo's gonna do what Nintendo.
• 44:04
  Oh, yeah, they do, but.
• 44:06
  They do. Parker, any thoughts here, man?
• 44:11
  No, I mean, I think they've pulled every lever that they can possibly pull without raising the cost of the console. Like all the accessories, raising the cost of games, amiibo, everything. They did not want to raise the price of the console until they felt like they absolutely had no other choice. And so now they absolutely have no other choice. But it's nice that they're at least giving people some time. I think when Sony raised the price, they're like, you got a week. Go buy it. Now Nintendo's at least, like, you've got the summer to sort of like, you know, cut some grass for your neighbors or something and raise some cash and go buy this thing. So I appreciate the longer Runway that they've given their fan base.
• 44:52
  Yeah, well. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, I want to thank you for your time, you know, appreciate this. It was fun kind of chopping this up. And to you listeners, you know, well, hopefully you guys like this. And till next time, do the things and be good and. Yeah. All right, later.