What is Going on with A.I. in Gaming?! #379

Foreign.

We're Guardian Down Roundtable.

Each week we pull up a chair to talk gaming, the news, the hot topics and our current obsession.

We bring you, our community directly into the conversation.

So grab a seat, settle in and welcome to the table.

What's up Guardians?

Welcome to episode 379 of the Guardian Down Roundtable.

This is the podcast where we talk about news and topics that impact our gaming hobby, all while keeping the focus on our community.

We go live every Thursday night, 9pm Eastern on my Todd the Gator YouTube and Twitch channels.

That is Todd the Gator G A T R and we also go live in our Discord Live stage where you can either watch or listen in or both.

And our Discord invite, as you can see on the screen here is Discord gg Guardian Down Roundtable.

If you want to join our awesome community of gamers, we are a live show with an audio version available every Monday morning.

A new update on our website.

You can now see our live show video form or our audio form right on our website.

And that's guardian downcast.com if you want to see us with a less polished version of our podcast as we go live.

But I really love the live shows because usually the chat gets involved and we got a lot of topics to talk about tonight.

So I have a feeling it's going to get a little spicy tonight.

First, before we get started, let's introduce our guest co host tonight.

He's been a part of our community for over three years now.

He's been a big part of our GDR Discord community.

He's the veteran Marine that has been on several of our episodes.

But you can hear his original interview with us back on episode 261.

That is July of 2024.

So please welcome back our singular, still singular dungeon champion patron.

That would be Mr. Deadpool 1 Merc.

How you been?

How you doing Deadpool?

Doing good, doing great.

Thank you for having me here again.

Yeah, man.

Yeah man.

You know, I'm.

We always have a good time and you always have a.

We always have pretty good back and forth on the show and I, I'm starting to think of people to invite on the show every couple weeks.

I'm like, you know what?

I don't think Deadpool's been on a while.

Let's, let's talk with him and see what he's been up to.

And I.

Apparently you have some news to share tonight.

We'll, we'll go over that in the catch up segment later in the show.

But what do we have tonight in store?

Well, let me tell you, we have some quick gaming news articles that have crossed my feed lately, including a new segment I've created called the Destiny Watch, now that the Destiny game is revived and has a future.

So I'll periodically check in and see what's going on with Bungie and Destiny and maybe a little bit of marathon tonight for our topic of the week.

It has been a whirlwind of gaming news this month, and it seems like every week I'm hearing something that is new and that is how AI and Vibe coding is turning gaming upside down.

So we'll explain a little later in the show what that's about and some examples of what's going on in the gaming industry to combat that.

After which point we'll get into our catch up segment, share any highlights of our week and what we've been doing since the last couple weeks Live show I have two movie reviews to share tonight and some of you aren't going to be happy with my review.

I see who's in chat, so I have a feeling he may not like my review.

But anyway, at the end of the show, if time allows, we'll answer any questions from the community, whether it's in our podcast Questions channel, in our Discord or live on the show.

You guys can and we get to that part.

You can ask your questions in chat live.

And if you want to send us a voicemail or an email, remember to go to guardian downcast.com to find out more about that.

So if everyone's ready, let's roll.

Hi, this is B. Leahy and you're listening to the Guardian Down Roundtable.

Okay, first thing I want to talk about in gaming tonight, and this is probably the biggest news of the week, and that is Bioware.

Bioware is no more.

They put out a statement on on Twitter, I'm sorry X that says for more than 30 years, BioWare has been more than a studio.

It's been a home for storytellers, developers, and the players who brought our worlds to life.

Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect Anthem.

Now, after more than three decades of shared adventures, Bioware is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending.

There is no easy way about writing those words.

Our focus right now is on the incredible talented team who put their hearts into these games and supporting one another through this transition.

What generations of bioware built together is something to celebrate and remember.

These games became so much more because you played them, debated your choices, fell in love with the characters, literally, and made these worlds your own.

I added the literally part.

By the way, from all of us at BioWare, we thank you for being the most meaningful part of our story.

Depo, what do you think of all this, man?

What did you think when you heard the news about bioware going away?

I thought it was sad, to be honest with you, because they put out some really good bangers out there, and I know a lot of people are probably going to be wondering if those games are still going to be available, and I hope they will be, but it was surprising to me, so, you know, because some of their games are actually.

They're really good.

Well, here's the thing.

Ever since.

Ever since Activision, or, I'm sorry, ea, which is a part of Activision, all that, once they sold their soul and they basically were basically merged, you know, leverage to the hilt.

They have so much debt now, and I've heard that the Saudi family is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're.

We're not going to be pumping as much money into this as we originally talked about.

I think they had to look inwardly and say, hey, where can we make cuts here?

Where can we start trimming the fat?

Because they, you know, they have to show some profitability here.

And the easiest way to cut costs is human capital, man.

Unfortunately, I think I heard it was about 400 employees between different mini studios and Bioware itself that were affected by this cut.

I think 200 or 400.

I can't remember exactly what I heard, but, yeah, it's sad, man.

BioWare is one of those studios.

You just never thought.

You just always thought they were untouchable, right?

It's just one of those studios.

It's like a.

A fixture in our gaming environment, you.

Know, hey, but I can tell them this.

At least they have somewhere to go, because I saw that Destiny or Bungie's hiring for Destiny.

There you go.

And not.

Naughty Dog's still hiring, too.

I tell you what, Naughty Dog better put out a banger with their new Interstellar game or they may be next.

Sony's getting desperate, too, man.

They're selling their VR patents.

I talked about that last week's show.

They're selling all their VR patents, and with their PlayStation VR, they're unloading, man.

I tell you, as I talk about all this news articles tonight, I don't think we realize gaming is in for a really big quantum leap here soon.

I think we're just at the beginning of it.

I really do.

I'm really worried about.

I'm really.

I'm kind of worried about where things are going, but we'll get in that.

I'm not trying to get too far ahead of myself here, but yeah, big loss being Bioware going away.

I did play.

I didn't play all their games.

I did Trianthem.

I never played Star Wars.

Knights of the Old Republic.

Never was really into the Star wars games except Battlefront.

Never played Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate.

Nope.

But I did play Mass Effect.

I played Andromeda and I played Mass Effect 2 and those were really good games.

And maybe this is.

Maybe they're passing the torch.

Maybe this is the time for a new type of game, a new, a new era of games.

And maybe this is just the old guard, you know, falling on their sword, so to speak.

Yeah, I played the Star Wars.

That was one of the only ones I really played.

So yeah, that was not the, not the way I wanted to start the news tonight.

But the second bit of news I want to talk about is the ARC Raiders PvE matchmaking toggle test that just ended on Tuesday of this week.

And I did play it and I put a video out about how it went, how I felt about it.

But they did put out a small statement here saying the limited time PvE toggle test has ended.

We want to thank everyone that came to take part of who provided us with valuable data and insights.

And I'm sure they got that more than 30 million rounds of PvE were played over the testing period.

That gives us a huge amount of information to analyze.

As such, we're going to need a short period of time to dive into the numbers and draw out the insights.

We also want to collect your personal thoughts and reflections from the tests.

How did the PvE differ from the normal experience?

What can be improved?

What can be improved?

How did the typical PvPve experience change during the test?

Submit your thoughts through the PvE test feedback channel.

In their discord, we'll also be sending out a survey to a representative sample of Arc Raiders players from October 22, which I believe is.

Was that today or tomorrow?

I guess that was today.

No, that's today.

It was today.

So look for, look for that in your email, wherever however way you register to embark.

But I just had some few things to say here.

But.

But they said one thing they said before we get into it, what's next?

As mentioned, we need a bit of time to understand what the data is telling us, what our community is saying.

On the surface reading.

We know that the test has been polarizing.

As always, our decision on how to proceed will prioritize the overall health and enjoyability of the game.

We don't yet know what the outcome of the data analysis will be.

Yeah, I think they know.

But we will expect to be able to follow up with further information in November.

Thanks again for playing and participating in the test.

Leaving your feedback it is essential for us to be able to make informed decisions for the development of the game.

Speak soon Raiders the Arc Raiders team Do you play Arc Raiders Deadpool?

I don't know if you played it or not.

No, I just watch people stream it from time to time.

It's not really a game I'm.

I'm into but I did did take a look at the article and I did notice that I know they haven't confirmed whether the PvE matchmaking will become permanent.

I know they're still waiting for people's feedback and more information to come with that.

But I also noticed that, that they were, they were acknowledging that the tight.

The testing did divide the community a lot.

Yeah.

So some of the players enjoyed the co op experience while others didn't really enjoy it.

And then there was also.

I heard that there was also some player feedback that the, the loot wasn't even.

That wasn't dropping correctly and stuff like that.

So there wasn't really like a high, high focus for loot.

And I think the biggest takeaway was they, they have to find out if it's something that's going to be popular and stay within, within Arc Raiders.

I know they were talking about how they want to figure out if it's going to be able to co assist with PvPve and maintain a balance and challenge for long term health in the game.

But yeah, that's what I picked up from the article.

It's interesting that they're trying to go that route even though it's supposed to be a PvPVE game.

So I just think that, yeah, I think, I think it's gonna, it might take away from the actual whole purpose of the game because it's changing genres if you think about it.

Well, I definitely have a, I definitely have opinions on this.

It's.

This is my new go to game now other than Destiny on the weekends with the Raid crew.

But yeah, I mean I, I put out a video on my channel about this.

It got pretty good, pretty good feedback from it.

I mentioned in my video that they should make a single player adventure game like a survival game because they have all those Worlds, those giant worlds.

And I actually referenced a movie called I Am Legend.

I don't know if you guys remember that movie I Am Legend with Will Smith where he's a.

He's a virologist and he ends up, you know, virus kills the world and he's like one of the only people left alive and he has his companion dog.

And I said, man, can you imagine having a game like that where you're the last person on earth and maybe there's probably others that you don't know about yet and you don't know what their intentions are or whatever.

And it would just be really cool to have a PvE survival game in this genre.

You know, a dystopian future Earth that supposedly is extinct.

And the only the twist of course being that, you know, the robots took over.

So they have.

They have something similar.

Division.

Yeah.

Don't take this the wrong way, man.

I played Division 2.

I played Division 2.

I downloaded from.

From on my PC and it's just an older game.

And I actually remember playing the entire camp campaign on Division 2.

I actually, as I was starting to play it, I'm starting to think, yeah, I remember all this.

I never really went further out in like the, you know, the side missions and stuff or the big raids.

You know, I think I did one raid back way back then when Division 2 was out and everything was just so fricking spongy.

It was just crazy how spongy these enemies were.

And they've made a lot of changes.

I play with a group of my friends on PlayStation.

I'm waiting for crossplay.

Right.

I have it on both the PC and on the PlayStation.

Gotcha.

But I have a sniper build which is actually pretty good.

And I am out dpsing some of the guys that I play with.

So really I'm doing it with my sniper build.

I'm doing a lot of critical damage and stuff like that.

I just got this new sniper rifle called the Prima Donna, which is amazing.

Okay.

Does a lot of damage.

But with the arc Raiders, I think that wouldn't be a bad idea for them to come out with like a, like a single player game or like a maybe, maybe a lead up to like prequel to show you why all that happens.

There you go.

The problem with a.

The problem with a narrative driven game like that is it's a lot more work for Embark.

See, the reason Embark was able to make this game in like half the time is because one, they use machine learning to make a lot of the enemies and stuff, which is really.

I think it's their sweet spot is the how the machines actually learn to survive and learned how to escape you when you're going after them.

But they did it in two years because the game has a pretty simple loop.

There's not a whole lot.

There's no big giant campaign.

You basically just jump in and as you complete objectives, they'll give you little snippets and little cutscenes that are not even 30 seconds.

They're very, very small cutscenes.

So as far as narrative, you know, and development in that area, it's pretty.

It's pretty light.

It's nothing like Destiny.

I mean Destiny, we get like a.

A two minute cutscene sometimes, you know, in like a final shape and stuff.

So it's.

I call it like a Destiny light game.

It being that, you know, it's.

You're on this world shooting aliens and fighting aliens and stuff.

And even though it's not considered a looter shooter, I feel like it is because it's.

What you're doing is you're searching for all this loot, all these materials and stuff.

And you know how your boy likes materials, farming and destiny too.

So it's.

You can see why I was driven right to it.

I'm not crazy about the third person view, but it works.

And it's nice about the third person view is you actually see the outfits that they sell to you, you know, that you can buy or level up on.

So anyway, I'll keep the arc raiders talk light tonight.

I don't want Kelvin to be drunk after listening to this.

And Maximo is probably rolling his eyes right now with the arc raiders talk.

But Ping brought up a good point too, that Destiny doesn't even have the full story in the game.

It's only part.

Well, of course.

But hey, don't get ahead of myself.

Don't get ahead of yourself.

Ziping.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention that.

I'm gonna mention that.

Coming up, let's get into another story here.

PlayStation.

The creator, Ken Kutar Kutaragi suggests the video game industry hasn't caught up with the evolution of AI it's like there's no actual progress being made, he says.

Here, Ken, known as the father of PlayStation, participating in the opening ceremony of Sarek, a new academy research and education hub centered on games at Japan's University of electrocommunications.

On September 29th.

Talking to 4gamer.

In a follow up interview, Kutaragi touched on the topic of generative AI and how he thinks the rapidly evolving technology is going to change the game industry.

While Kutaragi considers the PlayStation to have been a technological driver in in its early days, he says that after his retirement, the console has become much closer to a PC due to the influx of talent from the PC industry.

And while the shift did not.

While the shift did have both its pros and cons, Karagi says it ultimately didn't lead to further technological evolution.

And for that, as for the market, next step towards innovation could potentially be he says.

He suggests that the game industry should integrate the recent technological advances of AI.

He cites examples of both Nvidia and AMD who work together with Sony and PlayStation moving in the AI sector.

AI involves far more advanced technology, but the current game industry hasn't really tapped into it, he says.

Despite all the time and resources poured into games, nowadays, the only changes seem to be like slightly better shaders or NPCs that can speak a bit more.

But compared to AI, it feels like there's no actual progress being made.

He argues that through AI, games will be able to transform into entertainment that could, quote, change human sensibilities.

He anticipates that this could lead the current global game market, which stands to be over 30 trillion yen, to grow to about 3,000 trillion yen.

It's predicted that real AI technology will be capable of generating content at the same speed as today's consoles, sometimes around sometime around 2028 to 2029.

When that happens, all content will change.

Communication and delusions will become content.

Fantasizing itself will become a type of content.

He also says.

In a separate report by Game Watch, Kutaragi said that while current AI is considered amazing by many people, it is still in the stage akin to a newborn baby.

While its responses are instant, all of them are ultimately based on information accumulated in the past.

This is why he believes that it will be, quote us, humans and the AI to shape the future.

He argues that simply using AI expand to expand existing frameworks is insufficient and that going forward it will be crucial to have people that are able to grow alongside it and create something new from that foundation.

The people who have enough skills to expand the possibilities of AI will be in high demand for the future, he says.

So, yeah, I want to just touch on that because here's the guy who invented PlayStation.

Basically he's one of the main founders of the game and he probably, you know, he sees the consoles are basically on a PC platform now.

Most of them are the same kind of processors and cards and stuff.

And I'm Honestly, I'm honestly surprised that they don't have anything in the pipeline as far as AI development and AI, you know, enemies that are smarter and react to you and from your, your history in the game, how they can suggest different things to you that make it more real, you know, seems like there's, like he said, they're at the infant stages, so.

Any comment on this before we move on?

Yeah, I think one of my big takeaways from this is that he still believes that human, that humans matter despite the, the enthusiasm for AI.

He believes people must work alongside the technology to create generally new experiences.

Yeah, simply using AI to improve on the existing systems won't be enough in the, in the long run.

He, you know, and that's one of my takeaways I got from him.

But I think another thing, another one of his, like his questions was, was, are developers, are developers pushing the boundaries who, for what games can be or are they primarily, primarily making existing formulas bigger or more visually impressive?

Because what are they actually trying to, what's, what's, what's the end goal?

Are you actually trying to make it where it's an all involving world or are you just trying to, you know, are they just trying to just give us a little bit of here, a little bit there?

Because like GTA is coming out next month.

Yep.

Right.

We're about to, we're about to find out what the little, all the little add ins and all the little extra stuff they did for that game and what took them so long for them to come out with it.

My questions are like, are players, do players rather have a beautiful handcrafted game with carefully written characters or are they going to be looking for something that's AI?

AI makes the world and the characters are react uniquely to everything you do.

So what is it going to be?

So I just want to know.

I know he brought up some really good points on how he thought AI would work, but I think that the PlayStation and the Xbox, I think that they're going to have a run for their money because PCs are just getting better and better and better.

The graphics cards are getting better.

You can do a lot more with PCs.

Refresh rates are a lot better.

PlayStations are limited to our Xboxes so I don't know if they'll be able to truly use all the AI on a console based platform if they don't make them more similar to a PC.

So you know, yeah, they got good graphics and everything like that, but the console is actually pretty small compared to.

A PC here's the thing we've approached just about photorealism.

We're pretty dang close.

It's close.

You can still tell there's a difference.

But we're really close to photorealism.

And once they hit photorealism, there has.

They have to be able to go further than there.

The next step has to be something really totally different.

And however way you feel about AI, I still think that is going to tie in a lot with gaming in the future.

And just like I said, just responsive NPCs and things that make the game more personable and more responsible, realistic.

It's really going to suck people in.

It really is.

And I'm curious how much GTA 6 is going to have in it.

I'm guessing they don't have a whole lot in it because it's 200 gigs, the initial download for the game.

200 Gigs.

That's enormous, man.

You got to remember too, they still have to provide because they're eventually going to have an online mode and then they're eventually going to come out to PC.

So right now we're just getting the base game.

We're just getting the story and everything like that.

So we have to see what's going to be in store.

Because what if.

What if they have all that good work into the story and then people are expecting the same good atmosphere that the story provided, but it doesn't show up in the online version.

Because in the online version you still have NPCs, you still have everything else going on.

So is that going to carry over to online or is it going to carry on to other games too?

So yeah, that's how I look at it.

Ziping made it made a good point.

In the chat he goes, logic and programming, fine.

It's inevitable it will use AI if it isn't already.

But leave the art to the human artist.

I'm going to get into that later as well.

Ziping so I think you'll kind of agree with how I mentioned the topic of the week a little later in the show.

So there's a game I want to bring up that has really, really beautiful artwork and that is Ghost of Tsushima.

Ghost of Tsushima has very beautiful artwork and that's something that developers did.

I don't think AI would be able to.

I think AI might be able to do it right, but it's not going to be as smooth or it's not going to be as, you know, from the human eye.

I know when I play some of the games on PC and then play them on PlayStation is a totally different experience because you can actually change your settings on a PC and you can make the game look so realistic, especially now when they have DLSS5 on it makes everybody look realistic.

You got players on basketball games and football games.

You actually see the real faces.

So yeah, and PlayStation has a as a, as a version called PSSR.

It's still in its beginning stages though.

I don't think it's there yet.

But you know, you're more limited with the console.

There's no doubt, there's no doubt.

I mean, Kingsley says it all the time that, you know, nothing beats a PC as far as photorealism and getting the graphics where you want them to be.

As long as you have the rig that can push it, you know, it has the computing power to and the graphics card to do it.

So I want to keep moving here because I have a feeling we're going to get into a pretty good conversation a little bit later.

The next report this I had my jaw dropped on this.

Microsoft reportedly considering selling or spinning off Xbox New report reveals Phil Spencer's exit in 2026 left Xbox with a new CEO Asha Sharma and an expensive problem to solve.

Fortune's new investigation describes an approximately $21 billion gaming business whose current generation consoles have sold little more than a third as many units as PlayStation 5.

As a Microsoft measure of Xbox's profit margin has hovered around 3%, the report says.

This is from Fortune.

Also, questions about Microsoft's long term commitment were already circulating.

The information had previously reported discussions about a possible Xbox spinoff and Microsoft has been directing enormous resources toward AI.

Well, big surprise, that's where Asha Sharma came from.

So it makes sense that she starts using and she's been hiring a lot of her buddies too that had been working with her in previous companies.

Sharma, meanwhile, has begun cutting jobs and consolidating studios as she tries to rebuild the gaming division.

Fortune's latest reporting points to specific internal discussion Microsoft explored selling or spinning off Xbox.

Several current and former staff members told Fortune they believe Microsoft could be preparing Xbox for sale, spinoff, outside investment or conversion into a subsidiary.

More significantly, some sources say they knew of a high level presentation prepared after Sharma took over in February that examined those possibilities.

The report presentation adds weight to the story because it points to an internal discussion beyond employees own suspicions.

Fortune doesn't identify who prepared the presentation, whether Microsoft's board reviewed it, or whether executives favored one outcome over the others.

There's also no indication that potential buyers could have you know, have contact, been contacted outside that investors or have submitted offers.

No transaction timetable was reported either.

The the investigation also identifies changes in Xbox corporate identity.

Following Sharma's appointment, employee email addresses switched from Microsoft.com to xbox.com Microsoft then dropped the Microsoft gaming division name in April and renamed it Operation Xbox.

Neither change proves a sale is coming, though their timing has contributed to questions about the business's future.

Microsoft's own executives are pushing back.

Judson Althoff, who oversees its commercial business, told Fortune we would not have put her on a business we intend to sell.

He also argued that Xbox's low latency requirements help test Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and that the division maintains retail relationships with companies such as Walmart.

Minecraft also connects Microsoft with younger creators.

Not going into it any further here.

I don't need to.

It just gets down in the weeds even more.

But what do you think about this, man?

This never occurred to me that they would be considering selling off Xbox from Microsoft, just cutting it off.

What do you think about that?

I think it's crazy, but they have been taking a huge hit on the profit margins because they were.

They were generating about 21 billion annually in business, but the profit margins have dropped about 3%.

So PlayStation has been selling more.

More than Xbox has been being purchased.

I've seen that in.

Because, you know, I work for Best Buy.

Yeah.

Seen that at the store.

We have more consoles for Xbox than we do PlayStations and switches.

So the switches and the PlayStations are like, they're going.

We barely have anything for them.

Right.

But we have a crapload of Xboxes.

And I think it's interesting because of the whole restructure, too.

Like, I know a lot of jobs were cut and they were consolidating studios.

Yeah.

It was only 1800 of 3200 still, you know, almost double that coming out still.

Which still had to be cut.

Yeah.

Which is kind of concerning too, because, like, what are you going to do when you cut the rest of those people?

Like, what's the whole plan?

What's the whole, you know, what are you going to do?

I just think it's crazy.

I know that they're saying that Xbox is not for sale, but what are you going to do when your profit margins drop even more?

Like, I know if you were to drop.

If they start dropping to like 10%, that's going to really kill.

That's going to kill their profit margins.

I know Microsoft is like, exploring other options.

I know they're trying to do the whole gaming from anywhere where you can use your TV and use other devices which you already know.

My opinion on TV gaming, it's not, is not viable.

Your TVs do not have great grab.

They do not have great motherboards and they cannot hold much information on them.

It's just a, it's just a motherboard that powers on the TV and stuff like that and helps convert, you know, images and things like that.

But the network can't really do.

You can't really do much, especially when you're.

Yeah, the processors are dead slow, man, they're so freaking slow on those TVs.

And Maya, you, you've brought it up in the past.

I have my Samsung, my wife, my.

WI Fi, the WI Fi on my own tv, it doesn't work that well, so.

Or it doesn't even work at all.

It went out.

So I have.

Even if you had to put a fire stick in.

Yeah, I have an Apple TV plugged in, so that's the only way I can.

That or fire stick.

So one thing I wanted to mention.

Deadpool, one of the executives says, well, no, no, we're going to use it for Microsoft to test Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.

If that is the case, then why did they severely limit your cloud allowances?

They've limited time on their cloud gaming services.

Even the most expensive tier of membership of Xbox Game Pass membership has what, 15 hours a month?

And that makes no sense.

They already have a cloud based.

Because they're using OneDrive.

OneDrive is a cloud based system that they use for Microsoft and you can store unlimited things on there.

So why can't they have a higher.

I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to control how long gamers play and then they want you to pay for more.

They, they.

I think they're starting to.

Greedy.

Okay, Yeah, I think they're starting to be greedy because that's.

I, I hate to say this because I know Kingsley's a huge Apple person, but Apple's greedy.

I'll tell you this.

Apple, really?

No, no.

Yeah, come on.

So, but you know, it's just, I think they're trying, I think they're trying to be competitive of all the other companies out there because, yeah, like PlayStation's killing it right now.

Even though they have their.

Well, everybody, this thing.

Come on.

We know, we know why PlayStations are flying off the shelf.

It's because of GTA 6 being exclusive.

Come on, man.

That's why they're.

But, but I'm telling you, and I'll, I'm going to get into that later too about GTA 6 but yeah man, I, I, I, I don't know if that, that, I don't know if that comparison is accurate but yeah, I mean nobody.

Well here's the thing man.

I wanted to buy an Xbox Series X. I wanted to.

It looked like a cool ass console but what games did they have to play on it?

I mean with PlayStation you have exclusive games that are made for that console that look fantastic when you play.

God of War is a good example.

Nothing looks better with God of War than on a PS5.

And, and I played God of War 2018 it was for the PS4 and it was upscaled so beautifully for the PS5.

It was just gorgeous man.

It was a fan.

I mean I couldn't believe it was a PS4 game.

It looked like a brand new game to me.

And that game is eight years old.

Wait until you play Ragnarok.

Ragnarok.

Yeah, it's on my list.

Yeah, it's on my list.

That, that's a really good, that's, that's one of the only games I bought a hard copy because I wanted, I wanted a hard copy but I also got it with the, it came with controller, it came with Thor's Hammer.

I got a collector.

Oh yeah, hell ye.

But you know games like that, you know, exclusive, exclusive games.

That's true.

I don't think Xbox really had too many like now gear.

Now all their games are.

Yeah, Basement says Gears of War.

That is true.

Gears of War.

Gears of War is available.

Halo's available.

A lot of games are coming available but they're also there.

I think that's a smart move on them because now you got people that play PlayStation that are buying Microsoft owned games.

So they opened up, they opened up their floodgates for that.

But they're losing money on the console end.

So the selling of the games is not going to make up what they're losing in consoles.

Zipping also says using their internal platform for testing Azure latency has nothing to do with subscription costs.

Sure hope people didn't overpay for PS5s to play GTA 6 at 30 or less frames per second.

Well hopefully It'll be at 4k.

If it's 4k, 30 may be enough.

But I don't know man.

I pre ordered it.

I'm just a curiosity factor alone.

I went ahead and pre ordered the game.

I just got to see what it looks like on the Pro.

I got the PS5 Pro.

I paid extra for it before it got blown up to super expensive pricing.

But 4K, choppy 30.

Okay, we'll see.

I'm curious to see how optimized it is for the console.

But on the same topic as Xbox, there's another report that the next gen Xbox project helix targets a 2028 release could cost 1200 to $1800.

They're talking about a holiday launch 2028, and they're trying to consider whether they're going to subsidize their next console.

They said Microsoft's generation Xbox consoles have sold a little over a third as many units as PlayStation 5, which we just talked about.

Hardware costs are climbing.

Memory chip shortages adding pressure to console business already struggling to compete with Sony.

And Asha Sharma replaced Phil Spencer and her plans include new hardware under the Project Helix name.

And again Fortune investigated it was paywalled.

A paywalled account article has revealed potentially steep price tag and a release window for the next Xbox console.

They're saying between 12 and $800 unless the company decides to subsidize it, according to a new report by Fortune.

The publication also posts that Sharma plans to release the console during the 2028 holiday season.

Neither the price nor the launch window has been formally announced by Microsoft, but Fortune describes the pricing as an internal projection, meaning the final amount customers could change, particularly if Microsoft chooses to absorb some of the hardware cost.

Even at the bottom of that range, Project Helix would be an expensive proposition for a console.

Asking $1,200 for hardware meant to draw people back to Xbox is a tough sell when the company has already lost so much ground to PlayStation.

I'm just going to go back to Xbox Series X there.

What.

What exclusive game?

Why.

Why would I want to buy a Series X Xbox?

You had no special games for this Xbox console.

I wanted to buy one.

You know, I have a. I have an Xbox One Day One edition.

But I have not invested anymore in Xbox consoles because I can get everything on PlayStation Now.

I heard like, like Basswindu said Gears of War.

I'm not a Gears of War guy though.

I didn't grow up in that playing Gears of War.

I grew up playing Call of Duty and other PlayStation variants.

But the.

What was I gonna say?

The.

But.

But there's really been.

There's nothing for the Xbox Series X. I mean, they were promising the.

What's the game that they've been b.

Making forever that they haven't replaced yet?

It's the, the fantasy game.

I, I don't have it written down.

I. I'm trying to remember the name of it.

But anyway, everyone knows what I'm talking about.

Supposedly.

I heard that that's going to be.

I don't know if this is accurate or not, but I've heard that that's going to be available on more than just Xbox.

So, I mean, if it's on PC.

I mean, I have Xbox gaming on my PC, but I actually canceled Game Pass because like I said, man, I can just about play everything on between Steam and PlayStation 5.

There's really no reason for me to go to Game Pass.

It really isn't, man.

I don't know what you, how you feel about this.

Are you an Xbox guy?

I can't remember.

I know Zombie Pops is.

No, I've been PlayStation from, from when I had my PS1 that was.

Actually had a little chip in it so I could play Japanese version games.

So that's what I was doing back in the day.

You were doing your burning disc?

I was playing.

I was ordering Japanese games and playing them on my PlayStation.

Yeah.

So that's what I was doing.

But no.

You talking about me?

You talking to me jailbreaking my PlayStation 1?

Is that what you're referring to?

Well, my PlayStation 1 was jailbroken too.

To play Japanese games.

Yeah, but you remember what you had to do to jailbreak it?

You had to open it up and start soldering wires and connecting wires inside the console.

Today.

You don't need to do that.

No, I did it the easy way.

I bought a chip from Japan and put it in the back of the PlayStation.

Okay, all right.

The easy way.

All right.

I was, I was young.

I was young and I was like into this stuff.

But I was like, how can I do this without having to open it up?

Open up?

Because the old PlayStation, like the old gray one.

Yeah.

They had ports in the back and they didn't sell the stuff that we can plug into it here in the United States.

It was all Japanese made.

I was, I was playing Dragon Ball GT Final Bout in Japanese.

I was playing a whole bunch of other games.

But I think it's crazy because that price point, 1200 to 1800, you can get a good gaming PC, a low end gaming PC for around that price.

You could get something that's going to play what will it be?

What will it be in 2028 though?

You know, that's a, that's the, that's the million dollar question.

Yeah, I, I just, I'm telling you, exclusives are going the way of the dodo.

There won't be exclusive games down the road.

There just Won't.

I just don't see it happening.

I know they're trying to incorporate the new.

They're trying to incorporate AMD chips designed just for the next generation graphics technology that they're putting into the Xbox.

I know they're trying to do that because they want to be able to have it where Xbox and PC games can play on the console.

Because you can play Xbox games on PC.

You can play every.

You can play damn near any game on PC.

Yeah, you can find it, you can port it, you can do all types of.

You can find emulators.

I mean, it's all out there.

Internet's just full of that stuff.

Yeah, that's true.

But I think what they're trying to do is, I think they're trying to reach out to the fan, to the Xbox fans and give them that option of flexibility by combining the Xbox with PC gaming.

But I don't think it's going to go that far.

If you're going to spend $1,200 or $1,800, you might as well take that money and put it towards a PC.

Get yourself a nice good gaming rig, if that.

You can get a, you can get a $3,000 gaming rig.

Take that $1,800 and put it into the $3,000 gaming rig.

See, you know.

Yeah, that would make more sense.

See, I thought, I thought the reason why they were raising the consoles, I think they wanted to.

My, I, my understanding and what I was thinking is they're going to push players, especially players who don't have any money, to the cloud gaming.

But then they, then they do all these restrictions on cloud gaming, you know, 5, 10, 15 hours a month that then that's clashing.

They're trying to get people into cloud gaming and then making these really abrupt changes where there's still cloud gaming services out there like GeForce, I think that are still unlimited.

I think if not, they're like hundreds of hours, which, let's face it, most of us never get that in.

But I don't know, man.

I don't know what's going on with Xbox right now.

And it makes me think maybe they are going to spin off or sell the Xbox division.

Microsoft will.

But let's face it, Xbox is just a drop in the bucket for Microsoft.

It's such a big company.

It's probably an afterthought at this point.

And I think Phil Spencer really was the last big connection to gamers in the Xbox world because he played the games with the gamers.

But I Don't know how much gaming Asha Sharma has been doing lately, but.

I think this might come into like if.

Because we don't know how much the new PlayStation is going to be.

If the new PlayStation is going to be competitive and say Xbox does come out at that price point, it could make the PlayStation consoles more attractive to a budget conscious player.

So what if, what if they do come out with the PlayStation 6 and then they're like oh, PlayStation 6, 800 to 900 like the PS5 Pro and you're make.

That's.

That's more reasonable to those conscious of gamers that don't have the, don't have the money, you know, dude, but, but you can nowadays, you can, you can actually Pay to own PCs nowadays.

So you can get PCs and pay to own.

I can't.

What's the difference?

So dude, they weren't selling Xbox series X's and S's right now at low prices.

Do you think what that thing matter?

Freaking do my taxes.

If they're going to want 1800 bucks for it, I don't see it a viable man.

I don't know.

I'm actually wondering if that project Helix is even going to come about and what if Xbox does get sold off before any of that happens and then the new owners decide what to do.

I don't know man.

When they got rid of Phil Spencer, it was just bad.

I know Phil gave the studios a lot of leeway and there was probably a lot of cost overruns and stuff in that company.

Not the most efficient.

And now the efficiency experts are coming in and it's killing all the art.

We're killing studios, we're cutting costs.

This is just like EA, man.

It's just like EA getting rid of BioWare.

They're just cutting costs.

And what are they going to have left when they get rid of all this talent?

What do you have left?

My question is how are they going to be able to.

I know they have many PCs out here that can actually do really good gaming and stuff like that, but how are they going to be able to, you know, deal with the, with the major problem of the shortages of memory storage and all the expensive components.

How are they going to overcome that?

Think about it.

RAM is freaking expensive.

It is now.

Maybe it'll.

Maybe it'll let up by 2028.

I don't, I don't know if it will or not.

But yeah, like I, I have a.

So I have five terabytes in my.

Wow.

In my PC.

That's nice.

Did you Buy that early?

No, no, unfortunately.

Well, I just spit the money.

No, no, no.

So I got a 1500 SSD for 500 bucks.

Damn.

Well, you're in the business, man.

You can find the deals.

You just gotta know people.

So I had a buddy that worked at the micro center and he actually got it for me for 500.

Nice, man.

So good on it, but you know, it's, it's hard.

Well, Best buy, they, they actually took away a lot of our, a lot of our discounts on PC parts.

We can't, we can't purchase PC parts at a discount right now or we can't use employee discount on it.

Dude, I bought a 2.

I bought a 2 terabyte SSD back when I bought my computer like 2 years ago.

If I would have known what RAM was worth right now, I would have definitely gotten a 5 because it wouldn't have been that much more.

Anyway, hindsight's 20 20, right?

The SSD I have on my PlayStation that cost me.

It's only a one terabyte.

It only cost me like 60 bucks when I got it.

Geez.

And the one terabytes are like what, a hundred and something?

That's one of, that's one of the reasons I upgraded to the PS5 Pro.

Other than the features they said would be built into these games, these enhanced games.

That was one of the things that sold me.

But the other thing was it came with a two terabyte standard right then and there.

That almost made the difference up in console price, the way that RAM costs.

Now a couple comments in the chat here before we move on.

Basewindu says, I'm already building a Steam machine.

I'm not paying over 900 for a console.

Exclusives are bad for gamers and always have been.

Says Zip Ping.

And Basewindu says, I remember for the first PlayStation I had spring.

I had a spring or something that made it spin disk backwards so they could play the Japanese games.

Holy crap.

I never heard of that, man.

Damn, that's old school.

I never.

I remember that.

Do you remember one of my Buddies had his PlayStation like that so it'll spin the disc backwards because their.

Theirs is actually written backwards.

That's a genius.

Hello out there.

This is Ally Kate and you're listening to the Guardian Down Roundtable.

All right, let's move on to some what we call the Destiny Watch.

I do says from Destiny and Bungie news this week.

Yeah, you know it never fails.

Give Bungie a week with zero official comms and the community goes completely off.

The deep end with wild rumors, classic Bungie patch priorities and modders literally merging two entire games into one engine.

We've got news on unvaulting the Bungie store shutting its doors.

We talked about that last week in Reality.

Check on Those Battlefront.

Battlefront 3 whispers.

Let's just put that to rest right now.

No, we did hear some inklings that Bungie was in the running to be selected to make the Battlefront 3 game.

And if I remember correctly, Dice made the last two, and I gotta admit, man, they were pretty good.

It literally is battlefield with PlayStation skins.

I mean, it literally is just, you know, the, you know, the, the, the machinery and the guns are different, but other, you know, it's basically the, the pattern is.

It's a Battlefield 4 vibe when you go in there.

But here's the reason why I'm so glad that did not happen.

By the way, it's Dyson and Respawn that are in the running now.

I think it's been debunked that Bungie's going to be doing it.

If Bungie would have settled into making a Battlefront game off book, this was the fear I had when Sony took over Bungie.

I was so afraid that they were going to become a service developer where all they were going to do is just service other people's games.

And what happens to these studios?

They just.

They dissolve into oblivion.

You never hear about any projects from them ever again.

And that was my biggest fear.

When Bungie got acquired by Sony, that was the one thing I was worried about, was they would use their talent to make, you know, a certain part of a game for another developer that's putting out a game.

But now that they're not doing that, at least for now, it appears Bungie is going to be able to stay focused on its ip.

But what did you think when you heard that deadpool about Battlefront possibly being made by Bungie?

I thought it would have been great idea at first, but then I started thinking, well, actually I think it would have been great because look at the DLC we had in Destiny 2 where we had the lightsabers and the gun.

The guns, they were Star wars esque, but they felt.

It felt so good to use those.

And Equilibrium was, yeah, one of my favorite dungeons.

It is my favorite dungeon.

I run that one a lot.

I. I got the Black Saber on both my accounts and I was trying to get the other Dark Saber.

But yeah, it's the, the gameplay and the feel of it.

I think they would have did a really Good job with the, with the weapon.

Weapon wise.

Oh, yeah.

Their skins that they created, the Mandalorian skins, the Darth Vader skins.

I think they are the ornaments.

Yeah, those would have been.

They would.

They.

They killed it.

So I think they would have did a good job.

But I think, I think some people wouldn't like it because I think.

I don't think Bungie would.

I think Bungie would try to do like a first person type deal versus doing like the third person point of view and I think it would just take away from it just a little bit.

But Dice is.

I've played both.

I've played on Battlefront 2.

Dice.

Dice has done a really good job on.

On them.

I think that they.

I think they should keep doing.

Doing the game.

I think the biggest takeaway for me is that since, you know, Bungie's not.

Wasn't officially announced or wasn't confirmed as a developer, I think they need to stick with Dice.

Dice.

Dice has been doing a good job and they know what they're doing.

What they're doing.

That's just my, that's just my opinion.

I know everybody has their own opinions, but I think it would.

It would have been.

It would have been a great opportunity for Bungie to expand beyond Destiny and Marathon doing a Star wars game.

I think it would have been great.

But I know they're trying to focus on their ip.

I know they're trying to come back with Destiny and I know they're trying to do a lot more because I know Marathon's failing.

Marathon has been failing for a long time.

I don't like Marathon.

To me, it just seems like it's.

I don't know, I just don't like the quality of the game.

I haven't even tried it just from watching people play it.

I just.

Yeah, the.

I don't know, it just feels.

I see the gunplay.

The gunplay looks really good.

It looks Destiny esque.

But.

Yeah, just.

But yeah, I think it would.

It would be good for Dice to stay doing this game.

I played a ton of Battlefront 2.

It being.

I love that game as well because it was.

It was battle.

It's basically Battlefield and what I say.

PlayStation skins.

I meant.

Yeah, you're right.

I meant Star wars skins.

It was Battlefield with Star wars skins and blasters and you know, the floating battle, you know, the floating tanks and stuff they made, you know, and every.

And the sound design was fantastic in Battlefront too.

Everything sounded like you were right in the Star wars world.

Now some of the Some of the forms of Battlefront I did not like, but I won't go there.

But Battlefront 2, like I said, I loved it.

Battlefront.

Battlefront.

Battlefront 1 to me was a disaster.

I agree, it was terrible.

There was no progression.

There was a limited weapons.

And then they finally listened to their, to their audience, their player base and they made it more like a battlefield game.

And that's when I was in the heroes and stuff were overpowered.

It was just crazy, man.

The second one was amazing.

I know people were using.

When they were using Darth Vader.

Darth Vader was freaking op.

He was ridiculous.

It was ridiculous.

Yeah.

The hero system was just.

It was such a bad idea.

I mean, talk about pissing people off in a multiplayer game.

And then you had people that were, you know, then you had the spend to win getting advantages in game for spending money in their.

Their loot boxes and stuff and loot crates.

And I remember the time, I remember I was.

I was listening to Generation X gaming, they were talking about it and they just tweeted out at that moment when I was watching and I got the.

I got the notification and I would.

I told them right on in the chat when it broke, when they took the loot boxes out of that.

So anyway, good times.

I do got a question.

I do got a question for you.

Yeah, man.

Would you trust Bungie to deliver a large scale Star wars shooter?

Dude, Destiny is already almost like a.

It's a space shooter already.

It wouldn't be much of a leap, would it?

I don't know.

But would you trust them to do something?

Star Wars, Star wars, like a full Star wars thing?

I mean, I'm looking at the Renegades expansion.

I thought it was done pretty well, man.

It felt Star Wars Y. I don't know, it just.

It's bungee, man.

It's not.

I don't know.

I'm biased because I don't want Bungie touching a Battlefront game.

I want them to work on a Destiny 3 or a Destiny Online or whatever it may be coming down the pike.

But no, I. I'm biased, of course.

But no, I wouldn't want them touching it.

That's not their game.

And that you're.

You're.

They're falling back to being a service developer and not.

Not getting behind their own ip.

And that's what I want them to stay doing.

Make stay to Destiny.

Keep doing what you guys do best.

And that's Destiny.

I mean, would you let me flip the question back to you?

Would you trust Them not.

Not for a large scale Star wars shooter.

I think they're good with what they were, what they're doing.

I think they need to stay on their realm of their fantasy shooters.

Yeah, they're Space Nest ones.

I wouldn't trust them with a full Star wars one.

I know that.

I know they were.

They would be capable of doing it with some of the stuff they did in Renegades, but I don't think that it would be best for them.

I think they need to just stick to what they're.

What they're known for.

Yeah.

Dice has always had glitchy games.

At Bing, he's talking about how he doesn't know if he would trust him.

But Dice has always had glitchy games, even in their Battlefield games.

And if their games weren't so ahead of the times when they made them, I think a lot of people just would have abandoned Battle Battlefield games.

But we just dealt with the glitches.

We dealt with those terrible bugs in the game.

It was just part of playing a Dice game back then.

You just.

It was just buggy.

I Remember when Battlefield 4 first came out, we, our crew loaded in.

The team speak didn't even work.

We couldn't even talk to each other because it was bugged.

It didn't even work.

You couldn't even talk to each other in the game.

This is before we had Discord.

Of course.

Now we can just jump into Discord and make our own party.

But yeah, the game speak inside, Inside.

The game was terrible.

I mean, it's always been kind of flaky, but it was.

We couldn't even communicate at all.

And talk about a downer, man, all of us were getting together to play a new Battlefield game that we had been playing a ton together.

Playing Battlefield 3 all those years and not even being able to talk.

We all basically just disbanded and went and played our own thing.

We just went and played solo because if we can't talk to each other, we can't coordinate any of our strategies and any of our, you know, any of our.

In our objectives.

Why?

Why what?

You know, if we can't even talk to each other.

Of course it's much different now, but looking back then, it was just really bad.

Straight up misrepresenting their product.

Yeah, they promised a lot, man.

They did.

They promised a lot back in the Battlefield games as well.

But I.

What.

What company does?

What company does?

That was.

I was just gonna ask.

That's what I was just gonna ask you.

Who do you trust with a Battlefield?

A battlefront game.

Who do you trust?

I would stick with Dice because they just know how to make the game and they can make it on a giant scale because they make Battlefield games.

I don't know who else you would trust to do it.

Maybe Bio.

I would maybe hire everyone from.

Bioware.

Bioware.

You know, I would trust.

I would trust Santa Monica Studios to do like a story driven one.

Like single player story driven one.

Santa Monica Studios, they're so good with God of War.

I think they would knock it out for something like that, but not.

I don't know who you would trust for to do a shooter game or a cooperative game like that.

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Zipping.

There's probably not many people left at Dice that made those games.

I think Grandal took some people with him, some of his really good developers.

That's why I like Arc Raiders so much.

It comes from the same minds as Battlefield and it's just in more of a dystopian world.

All right, I'll quit talking about.

I'll stop talking about Arc Raiders because I don't want to get people drunk.

What's up, Johnny?

Try hard.

How you doing, man?

Let's move on.

More news with Destiny this week.

The modders, the modders have merged Destiny 1 into Destiny 2, and the community modders have achieved what Bungie once called impossible.

Seamlessly running Destiny 1 assets, raids in real time, 60 frames per second, cutscenes already in Destiny 2 engine.

With a simple UI toggle, you literally toggle on your main map.

You toggle Destiny 1, Destiny 2.

All of this serves as a massive backdrop as Bungie prepares to deliver technical comms detailing the official roadmap for destination unvaulting.

And this kind of ties in with our topic of the week this week because holy crap, man.

I mean, I talk about, I talk about Destiny Online years ago, and I never would have thought that it was going to be the vibe coders that end up doing it.

I mean, where does this kind of leave Bungie?

I mean, if Bungie says, ah, we're going to involve Red War next, next, next month or something, we're going to do it in pieces.

Why doesn't, why doesn't Bungie just go to this vibe coder and say, listen, show us your.

Show us your, your, your, your UI here.

How are you?

How did you do it?

How did you redo this?

How did you remap this stuff?

How did you get this moved over here?

Why don't they just use this information and just make it official?

I mean, once, of course, they verify that it's good code and it vibes with what they got, because, I mean, have they been lying to us the whole time that they couldn't put the old game into the new game because the engine couldn't handle it?

He just showed it right here.

This vibe coder is already showing that Destiny 1 works in the Destiny 2 engine.

So who's full of crap here?

You know, I don't know.

That's so good.

That's a good point.

You know.

Well, I heard that.

I just.

Why, why not, why not hire the guy to work for, For Bungie, hire him to do, Hire him to run Bungie?

He even tweeted it out.

He said, bungie, I have all the code.

I says, I have everything running natively.

Natively in the engine.

I can show you how it works.

Why wouldn't Bungie hire him?

Thanks, brother.

You appreciate a great asset.

If you, if you look closely, there's, there's Galaga playing in the back on my console back there zipping says I don't think any of dice, people.

Yeah, you, you mentioned that already, that there weren't many playing B.

Making Battlefront or battlefield anymore.

Battlefield 6.

I, I bought it.

Yes.

I, I thought that they finally changed and the game was going to be better and, and it wasn't just, it's just not the same as Battlefield 4.

Nothing's come close to Battlefield 4 for me again.

And they just released a DLC out that, that has the air, sea and water battles and the Tank.

Yes, the tanks, the fighting gunboats, the helicopters and the planes, all that back again.

And I haven't checked into that yet, but they're doing whatever they can to bring back people who play Battlefield 4, and I just don't know if they're gonna, I don't know.

I just don't know if people are going to come back, man.

I don't know.

Sorry, I'm off topic a little bit here.

You know, you're good.

I, I, it's just the reason why I don't play Call of Duty or Battlefield no more.

Because.

Yeah, I just, it's not, not for me no more.

But I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean,.

They're Talking about Destiny 1 patrol spaces, old raids, old cutscenes, all rendering natively at a smooth 60 frames per second.

That's just, that's crazy, man.

You mean they talk about spaghetti code and tech debt and the game's too big to patch?

I would love for, for them to do that on PC.

Let us play freaking Destiny 1 on PC.

Let us, like, yeah, that'd be so cool.

And if.

If he's already doing it, just hire the guy.

He's already.

He's already got it done.

You can just show everybody how to do it and continue doing it.

What a win.

Make him one of the.

Make him one of the project leads or something like that.

Yeah, give him a title.

Give him a salary.

I mean, he.

Think of the years he just saved you in Vibe codes.

You know what I'm saying?

I don't know.

I. I don't know enough about it.

I'm.

I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Vibe coding.

I don't know how these guys make this stuff work, but it's just crazy.

I don't know.

Coding.

Coding's weird.

One of my guys and is really good at doing coding, and he.

He said that he was having issues on his PC and he re.

Recoded Windows on his.

On his own PC and he did it all from scratch.

And I was like, dang.

I was like, I don't know how you do it.

Somehow.

Bungie, Bungie's leadership.

Bungie's head of product, Josh Dean, did confirm on X that the team is, quote, looking at next week to queue up the update.

The update.

As far as maybe some kind of progress bar, I think they're saying not a.

Not a roadmap, but kind of a progress bar.

How they're going to.

I think they're treating it like a construction site where they're going to be adding pieces of it at a time.

Like I said, I don't know the specifics on this.

That's the only thing I know as far as what Josh Dean said this week, is that next week they're going to be starting to talk about the process of bringing back Red War and Leviathan Raid.

A lot of stuff that was taken out of Destiny 2.

So they're going to, like, puzzle piece it.

So they're going to put little pieces here and there.

That's what it sounds like, yeah.

So what does that sound like?

Like parts of a puzzle.

Just putting it back a little bit at a time.

All right, one more story here before we go to our topic of the week.

Former Marathon Game director reveals Bungie had a lot of disagreements over the game's direction.

Former Marathon Game director Joe Ziegler describes the disagreements over Bungie's shooter and explains why he was asked to take charge.

Back In March of 2024, Joe Ziegler opened up about the challenges he faced when he first joined the project, revealing that there were significant disagreements within Bungie about the direction of its extraction sh.

He of course took over a marathon in 2024 when Christopher Barrett was removed as the game director.

He stayed through the shooter until March 5, 2026, a couple years later.

Now Dell Shaffer the third is the new game director of the game.

Last month they acknowledged that Marathon had not reached as many players as it had hoped.

No shit, Sherlock.

This really.

It's really.

It's been really bad.

Their updated season has fallen flat.

Nobody's playing the game.

I think everyone's waiting for December because that's when the PvE game's coming out.

The PvE version, which I am going to try for the record, I might even stream it, just see what everyone thinks of it.

But he had an interview with PC Gamer and he said when he joined through former colleagues from Pandemic Studios, where he worked on the Saboteur, one of them was Justin Truman, Bungie's former studio head.

They began working on an unannounced project together.

Bungie later needed help with Marathon, so Ziegler moved over as an advisor before being asked to take over as Game Directorate.

It was actually a couple of friends that I used to work with at Pandemic, Pandemic who were at Bungie who approached me.

One of them was Justin Truman, the former CEO.

We started working on something, but then they needed help on the Marathon project.

So I went over to help advise them and they asked me to come take over the direction and I did that.

This article is really scattered.

I apologize.

He explained that while some development teams had have a shared vision from the beginning, others can have very different ideas about the project they're working on.

In Marathon's case, he found that the team needed help bringing those ideas together.

There were a lot of disagreements across the place.

His initial responsibility was to work with the developers to establish a clear direction for the game, ensuring everyone understood that they were trying to accomplish and how they could get there.

Ziegler said his approach involved helping the team identify a common goal before moving forward with development.

Once they agreed on that direction, he was able to help guide it and finish the project.

It's always interesting jumping into a project when it's already been started, because part of it is getting everyone together and being like, what are we trying to do here?

And sometimes some teams will just find a unanimous voice.

Everyone knows what they're doing and some other teams have a very desperate ideas of what they're doing.

I found this project was it had some areas where they were definitely some ideas about where they were going, but there were a lot of disagreements across the place.

He described Bungie as a company that operates in two different worlds.

On one hand, the studio faces enormous pressure to live up to the history with the franchises like Halo and Destiny.

On the other, he believes Bungie remains open to outside ideas and is willing to bring in new people to help improve its projects.

It is a very egoless company, ziegler said, explaining that Bungie often looks for fresh perspectives to identify areas where it can improve.

He also spoke about his long standing connection with Bungie, which dates back to playing Myth 2 as a teenager.

He recalled receiving an E3 ticket with a boxed copy of the game, which allowed him to attend the event for the first time.

Years later, he discussed that unusual promotion with Bungie co founder Jason Jones, who credited fellow co founder Alex Seropian with the idea.

That's basically all there is to the article.

But what do you think of this man?

I mean it's pretty, it's a pretty basic article just saying that, hey, he came in, which is.

This is kind of what I envisioned.

He came in, people were yelling each other as far as what they needed to do.

I mean it's kind of like the ship was on fire, right?

And he had to come in here and figure out how to put little fires out so they can at least complete the project.

Mean, what's your take on all this, Deadpool?

I pretty much.

I think the ship is.

I think the ship is still on fire and sinking.

I wasn't gonna say that.

I was gonna let you say that you're the bad guy.

Yeah, well, I'm not a big.

I'm not big on marathon.

I think it was, it was a waste of time, to be honest with you.

The other day when I checked to see what the player count was, it was.

I think it was like 900.

900,000.

Not even 900.

I mean 900 people less than Destiny.

Destiny's like destinies were averaging between 30k and it's bad.

They've been in.

They've been in triple digits.

900 Below below a thousand.

Below a thousand.

Yeah.

And yeah, that's.

And that's just looking on Steam.

I don't know what the Numbers are for PlayStation and Xbox, but I don't think their PvE1's gonna do much.

I'll be, look, I'll be looking forward to watching, watching it.

If you do stream it, I'll be looking.

I'm I'm gonna definitely, I'm gonna definitely play it.

I'll probably stream it because I'm sure people are curious.

I already bought the game.

I got nothing to lose, man.

I already paid my 40 bucks.

And the thing I had a problem with when I played, when I played Marathon, when it first came out, I played the, I played the, the closed beta or Alpha, I can't remember which.

It had so many of them.

And me and Kingsley both did.

We got invitations to do the closed alpha, I think it was.

And we looked at each other when we played it and we're like, dude, this is ass.

This game's terrible.

And we went on their discord on their closed alpha feedback channel and stuff and people jumped all over me, man.

They thought, they thought I was just shitting on the game.

I'm like, Dude, I'm a 12 year Destiny vet.

I know what a bungee game is supposed to look like.

This ain't it.

And what's funny is that Alpha that I played, the graphics were increased like tenfold by the time they actually released the game to the public.

Even on the beta, when me and Kingsley played the beta, we're like, this is not even the same game.

They tightened up all the graphics so well, but still, the.

Materials and stuff that you picked up in the game were so convoluted you didn't know what you were picking up.

And unless you can memorize pictures, that's basically all you could on the way you can know what you were picking up in the game.

So I'm, I'll stream it.

I'll probably stream it in December when the, the PvE mode comes out.

I'm just telling you right now, in December, if the PvE mode, and they're going to say it's going to be more narrative driven, more narrative driven.

And they're revamping some certain maps and stuff.

Basically they're turning it into a Destiny game, man.

It's the way I see it.

And hey, I'll play.

I'm, I'm a junkie for Bungie games if it, if it plays like a Destiny game and I have to do some objectives and there's some story and lore involved.

I mean, they still have, they still have the Lord Goddess herself still at Bungie.

So Alison Lures.

I'll, I'll, I'll play it.

I'll see how it is and I'll probably stream it in the community and see what everybody thinks about it.

But I'm telling you, if this does not land in December, There won't be a march.

Sony's got.

Sony's going to cut their losses on this game.

I'm actually surprised they've let it go this long.

Really am.

So I just thought I'd mention that.

I think, I think they're just trying to give it a chance, give it a shot, but I don't think it's.

Well, I think it's, you know, I think it's because just like think about on what they did with.

What was that one?

I was just gonna say that Concord.

Didn't, Concord didn't even.

They never gave it a chance.

Yeah, I know.

They sold 15, what, 13,000 copies of the game.

I never bought it.

I watched, I watched, I think watch Datto play it because he got paid to play it.

It was a sponsored stream Anthem.

In the beginning.

Anthem wasn't that great.

I, I don't have it.

I never, I played Anthem, but I never owned it.

I, I bought it from somebody and in the beginning when it first came out, it was, it was not that great.

And then.

Yeah, but then they made some changes and it started getting better, which they could have gave Concord an opportunity, but you know that that was Sony's call to not let that game come out or not push it forward, so.

Dude, I've said it so many times on this show over the years.

Destiny ruined me on Space Shooters.

They really did, man.

I would play, I would play Anthem and go, nope, it's not Destiny.

I'd play a game for an hour and know right away this is not.

It doesn't flow like a Destiny game does.

That's why I never played any other games when I played Destiny.

I feel like I'm so far behind everybody because it's all I played whenever I had time was Destiny 2 or Destiny 1.

But yeah, man, it's like I said,.

Now you have to, you have the opportunity to start playing more games and start doing more.

Yeah, don't, don't give up on, on Division.

Division.

I still got it.

Divisions.

Division's new DLC comes out.

I heard about that in November.

Okay.

And it looks like, it looks like it's gonna be a good one.

I tried playing Diablo 4.

I played probably two, two to four hours of the campaign and it just, just not my thing, man.

I mean I enjoyed it.

It was fun, you know, going through the mazes and the, and the, the, the, the top down look kind of threw me a little bit because I'm so used to third person views or, or first person viewing games.

But I Understood the game.

It wasn't anything to.

But you know what it is?

You know, it is Deadpool.

I've not played any Diablo games in the past, so I really didn't have anything to draw from.

I think that's the reason why it never really took for me.

I still own it.

I still upload up.

I still do the down, you know, the up.

The updates on the game in case I want to play it one day.

I don't have to sit there and do hours of updates.

I always make sure all my games are updated, even if I'm not playing them right now.

But yeah, zipping.

You're right.

Marathon's lack of identity internally is painfully obvious externally, in my opinion.

Yes.

Yeah, I agree, man.

Yep.

I heard.

I haven't heard you mention cyberpunk in a while.

Yes, I still have cyberpunk.

I started playing as a.

A rogue.

What is it called?

A rogue.

I guess one of the.

You know, like the Road Warrior.

And also I played originally when the game was so damn buggy as a corpo.

And I still have that save point as well, so I can flip back on whichever one I want to do.

But I recently picked up cyberpunk.

I think I might.

I might give it a try.

I have it on the PS5.

Yeah, I think it's.

I think it's what I got it on.

I. I'm gonna.

Mainly I got it and started playing it.

Cause I wanted to get into the flow of a GTA 6, you know.

Cause I know it's coming.

I wanted to get into that kind of game style.

So I understood, you know, missions and stuff.

And I. I got no complaints.

It looks good, it plays good.

If you look at all the games back on this console, I'm looking at all the games that I've looked back.

This.

This has like 78,400 games in it.

It basically has every game I've ever played in the arcade in it.

And I'm looking through all the games from my history that I played, and there's a few in there, like Burger Time.

And everyone plays the platform games, you know, all the Mario games and stuff.

But the main thing I look at that I really had fun playing is the shooters.

It's all the shooters, like Galaga, like the T shirt I'm wearing here.

This is what I love playing is the shooter.

So I think that's the reason why these.

These RPG games just don't.

I don't hang on to these games as much as I want to.

And I know GTA 6 is that kind of game.

I did play the campaign on GTA 5.

I thought it was good and very funny.

You should try.

I'm recommending the Blood of Dawn Walker.

I've actually.

Yeah, I enjoyed that game.

I have it on PC and it's pretty good.

You get 30 days to save your family.

Three days.

That's it.

Okay.

Well, no, I don't, I don't.

I haven't got that far.

So I think I have like maybe 10 days left to save the family.

Okay.

So I don't know what happens after that.

I know I've been.

I watch a few people that.

That streamed and they saved the family like really quick and they missed out on a lot of.

A lot of opportunities for stuff.

So I'm actually, I'm doing a lot of the side stuff, but whenever you do all the side missions, you are taking away from your time, so you do lose time.

Wow.

But it's a.

It's a.

It's an interesting game.

Pretty interesting game.

I don't know how I feel about timers, man.

The only timers I can live with are in Arc Raiders.

I know I have 30 minutes to get my stuff and get out of there.

Yeah, but you got 30 days.

30 Days.

Okay, here's the problem, man.

I only got a couple hours a night, if that.

And usually like it's like three days a week.

So wait at six hours a week to play.

It just gets tough, man.

You start, then I come back and look at it.

I'm like, oh, my family's gonna die in two days.

So am I gonna sit down and cram in and you know what I'm saying?

It's.

It's the time that when you play,.

When you log in.

Okay, I thought it was like real time.

I was freaking me out.

I was freaking me out, man.

Okay.

It's.

It's as you play.

So.

Yes, Nomad.

Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, it was Nomad.

Yeah, they had a big update today.

It's probably in my PlayStation 5 rated update.

Okay, let's move on to our topic of the week and then we'll do some catch up and answer any questions in the.

In the show.

Be right back.

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Later, Guardians.

All right, gang, for a topic of the week, what the hell is going on with AI?

Gaming is crazy right now.

I've heard, I've heard, heard more and more news about gamers porting over games to just about any platform they want.

I've heard about AI merging game codes and putting games inside other games.

I mean, I talked about Destiny Online World from Bungie years ago, but.

And I also talked about Bungie.

They're going to give us a roadmap or, okay, a progress bar of how much where they're going to start bringing out chunks of the game back like the Red War and the Leviathan Raid stuff that was taken out of Destiny.

Destiny 2 back when they said that they were going to revive the game.

And they haven't said anything about a future Destiny, by the way, just that they're bringing back the old stuff so far.

But here's the thing.

What if players make that happen instead?

I mean, this shit is crazy.

I've been hearing how AI is going to change things very quickly, but I never thought it would be this quick.

Rockstar Games just announced that GTA 6 will be on PC in six months.

And everyone here knows exactly why they're going to do that, because someone's going to port it over to PC once the main game's released.

Once that code is out and the game code is out there in the public, I'm guaranteeing they're going to have a port before six months comes around.

What was it, 18 months the last time GTA 5 finally came to PC?

I think 18 months, a year and a half.

Now they're talking about six months.

I can't imagine what the crunch is like right now at Rockstar Games.

But of course, the big drama right now is Arc raiders having this PvE toggle that embark put in the game test just last week.

What if players just make their own damn toggle?

I just talked about a toggle where you could toggle from PS, from Destiny 1 World and immediately toggle it and there's a Destiny 2 World.

What's to say that people don't grab the code for Arc Raiders and do the same damn thing?

I understand Arc Raiders is a live service game, so maybe there's there, maybe it's trickier.

I don't know.

Because, you know, it's server based and they can, you know, I guess Embark has more controls because it's server based.

Maybe not.

I don't know.

Maybe these are standalone games.

I don't know enough about it, but here's some questions that I wanted to pose to you and the chat, if you guys want to answer too.

I just had a few questions I want to ask you guys and I'm just curious what you guys think.

The studios, they're cutting jobs like voice actors, concept artists and writers.

Are they doing that to maximize profits?

Or is AI actually going to unlock things that human teams couldn't build or maybe couldn't build in time?

I'm just curious if we're going to get that corporate slop game because they're lazy and they think enough people will spend the money and drop 70 bucks on a game?

Or is it because that AI truly is an unlock?

What do you.

What do you think, Depo?

I mean, do you think that.

Do you.

Do you think that AI is going to.

Is going to.

I think it's going to make more creative people create things faster, in my opinion.

I think that's what's going to happen.

But what if these corporations, these big giant AAA developers, what if they just say, hey, we'll just have AI design the worlds?

I think that might be a downside because you lose the creativity and the fluid artwork.

Like I said earlier, I think that letting AI do all the background stuff will.

Well, it might lack.

And you won't have that true artist feeling, and you won't have like true artists actually working on games.

They'll just be there to.

Okay, this is my idea.

Let's let AI do all the Background stuff and I'm just gonna do the character stuff and that might potentially put the games at risk.

I just don't see that.

I see AI being a great tool to use to help speed up the process of games and making games a little bit faster.

But I still believe that we need to have that human touch to it.

We still have to have those artists.

There's some great artists out there that, that draw without even using AI and stuff like that.

And I can tell you this, I, I can draw.

I haven't drawn in a long time, but I, I can draw.

Yeah, I drew a lot of Ana.

I draw a lot of anime, but like it's, this is my skill, skill type and what I prefer to draw.

But there's people out there that are amazing artists and if we let AI just take over all that, then what's the whole point in having artists, what's the whole point of having people actually draw up designs for scenery and draw, draw up designs for like arenas and areas and games.

Like, we wouldn't have all those great looking arenas like we do in, in Destiny.

One of my favorite areas that's we don't have right now was for Gambit was It's, you're like, it's two different areas but just like the same map.

And you go over and it has like, you have lava, you fall into the lava, you die, things like that.

I can't remember the name.

Yeah, I can't remember the name of that.

I fell on that lava so many times trying to keep people off the, trying to keep the enemies off the vault.

Some of the players could come and dunk and the damn centurions would bash me with their shields into the lava so many times on that.

That map was so good for, was.

So good for invaders.

When, when Invader came, you had you.

If you had the right angle and they were shooting at you, you can use the terrain to block the shots.

Yeah, it wasn't open as some of the other Gambit maps, but we wouldn't cover.

We wouldn't be able to.

Yeah, we wouldn't be able to have that great design from a person that actually drew it.

Now you're gonna have AI come up with it and what if it doesn't push out the same effort?

Or what if it doesn't hit the same.

Like what if it's pixelating?

Or what if it's, you know, that the code doesn't, it doesn't match up?

Well, you know, I don't know how, I don't know how they.

How they would incorporate it that way.

But I think that we just need to keep the artists and keep some of the human aspect into gaming.

Yeah, Johnny, try hard in chat in our YouTube chat says, I'm not a fan of AI but it's hella efficient and save studios money and time and no actor contracts.

On the other end, there's a loss of emotional depth and genuine emotional characters.

Here's what I.

Here's my take on this.

And I'm surely sure as hell a layman in this sitting, this topic.

That's why I'm kind of bringing it up tonight.

I'm kind of curious what you guys think.

I've seen AI integrate code from something that was already created from a human being, from these teams.

I've seen existing games that have been ported and modded and pushed together, but I haven't seen yet AI create a video game that is just over the top.

I haven't seen one yet.

So maybe you're right.

Maybe there has to be that human connection.

Maybe there has to be that human imagination at work to make these beautiful games.

And then I think they should use AI to port and do all of the programming, what I call monotonous work.

You know, I think that.

I think that's where they should take advantage of it.

I've talked about this for the fine tuning.

Like, yeah, think about it.

People use.

Okay, So I deal with it all the day at work.

Because I work at Geek Squad, I deal with it all the time.

You get these people that come in, well, chatgpt told me this.

I, you know, Gemini told me this.

And I'm like.

I'm like, okay, I get it.

But I deal with this on a daily basis, and I'm the one that actually does it.

So, you know, like, who are you going to believe?

The person who actually does it?

Or a chat that's giving you a layout that's not even giving you a little bit more.

You know, one of my clients today, he's like, he's.

I can't stand the AI communication.

He's like.

He's like, I don't like talking to AI he was trying to get his Internet fixed at his home, and he's.

I was dealing with Xfinity, and Xfinity is this AI bot was just telling me how to do this.

Yeah, why.

Why even call him anymore?

Yeah, he's like.

He's like.

He's like, I don't.

He's like, I don't like it.

He's like, I'd Rather have a person that actually hears me out and hears my struggles and, and can identify what's going on versus a AI.

AI can't really depict emotion that well when you're on a.

Especially when it's a scripted AI for, you know, a call center.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I think they could use it for fine tuning like.

I know, I know.

I've used chat before to review like SOPs because I wrote a lot of SOPs when I worked at the school and it did a lot of work.

So it would like, it would cat.

It would like correct some of my grammar and there were things I was like, oh, that sounds a better word that way.

Good.

Yeah.

And I'm, I've been writing SOPs for a long time.

When I was in the military, I had to write sop.

Tell everyone what an SOP is, just.

So they know standard, Standard operating procedure.

So a lot of, A lot of businesses, they use standard operating procedures is how they actually run their organizations and how they actually have.

It's like pretty much like the, It's a robo.

It's a bible to, to an organization, to a business.

Yeah.

So here's the thing.

They can, they can be changed and modified, but you know, yeah, yeah, I,.

I'll use AI for stuff like this.

I have a stupid AI avatar.

When I set up my TikTok account and I can't get rid of the damn thing, I delete it.

I said, delete the avatar.

I hate these AI avatars.

They look terrible.

And I wanted to put my picture.

Instead I had a photo of myself.

This is my Todd the exterminator Zip TikTok channel.

I talk about grass and pest problems and stuff because all the years of experience that AI will never get, they can never compete on that level.

Now granted, if I talk about a certain grass and someone comes back and says, well actually, that's usually how they started.

Well, actually this grass is called the blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah.

They give me the scientific name that says this is actually considered a Florida native turf grass.

I'm like, what the hell does that mean between here and the price of tea in China.

I'm talking about how this grass is not sustainable.

And come time when the holidays are here, when the temperatures start cooling like they are now that this grass is going to die out, wouldn't you rather have a grass that's grain green year round?

That was the argument.

That was the whole, the whole short and the whole video was for people are just regurgitating stuff.

And I can always point it out.

AI.

AI.

They look this up on AI they have no clue what they're talking about.

They just want to look smart.

Or.

Or they just copy and paste it and put it in there.

And they don't.

Yeah, they don't.

They just want to look smart.

And then you ask them and they're like, I don't know.

You know, I mean.

Yeah, I got that.

I got that.

On one of our.

One of our customer satisfaction surveys, you can tell it's AI written because he just put in there.

And then it said he left.

He left his question.

He's like, give me a good statement that says they did a great job.

And then you're like.

And it gives.

All right.

I was like, yeah.

I was like, okay.

I was like, that's AI generated.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, I think artists are definitely going to be the ones that are affected right off the bat, because, face it, I don't know where AI is getting art, but I think they're.

I think they have to be getting it from art that's out there in the world.

They have to base it on something.

It's.

It's a.

It's a text predictor.

That's what it's.

It's a predictive model.

That's what it does, is it predicts you're asking it for something and it goes to the Internet and finds other people's work and then puts it together through your instructions and spits it back out to you.

My wife can pick out AI art so quickly, but eventually it's going to get good.

This is the early days.

It's going to get better and better.

It's just like what they do for cinematography, they take certain locations and they use those locations.

And yes, it's green screen, green screen, but they.

It's actual locations that are actually out there.

Like in Star wars, the island that Luke Skywalker was living on is actually.

Is actually a real location.

It's not a fake location.

It's a real location.

Things like that, like, you can tell.

Stuff that's green screen, too.

You can tell, man, because you can tell this.

The sets are shallow.

You can see they don't have a whole lot of room.

And if the green screen's really bad on some of these studios, you can tell where the reel falls off, where the reel is, and then where it's.

You can tell it's computer generated after that.

It's so obvious.

You can also.

You can also Tell whenever.

Like if they're walking like on.

Yeah.

If they're walking like, like across, they're.

All like in parallel to the camera.

Yeah, yeah.

And nothing moves.

You're like, you're like, oh, okay, exactly.

Let me ask you this.

Another question I had is how soon are we going to be able to be sold full AI slop games?

Full games and just made completely by AI and how, more importantly, how are we going to Trust before dropping 70 bucks on it that it's actually a true viable game that came from a human brain?

How soon do you think we're going to start to see a full AI slot game?

I don't think it's going to be soon.

I think maybe like probably by 2030 you're going to see some.

Because there's some games that use AI right now, but you're probably by 2030 you're probably going to see more games that are going to be like 50% AI, 50% human.

And then I think in maybe like 2035, 2040, you'll see AI slowly increase over that.

You still have to have people there to make sure that things are operating correctly.

So you're not going to have like a full AI game because you're still going to have to have the human person there to make sure that the quality is still doing good.

And the programming's.

You think 2030?

Okay, yeah, I think like not fully, but they're going to majority.

That's three and a half years away.

Really?

I mean, a little less than three years away.

That's pretty soon.

Well, think about, think about all the stuff that's been coming out lately.

Look at Elon Musk's new car that's coming out.

God, did you see that?

Did you see that freaking flying car?

Did you guys in chat see the flying car demonstration?

I bet fell out of my seat when I saw that.

It goes up on a ramp, defying gravity live on stage and then, then flips in midair, comes back down, comes back down the ramp.

Just totally freaked me out.

And then it jumped over at a truck and some cars and then it goes 0 to 60 in one second.

Damn, man.

I.

You know, whatever you may feel about the, the first trillionaire in the world, but he sure as hell wants to change things.

And man, flying cars.

I would never have thought we do even ever see a flying car.

Now I've.

Me and my wife talked about this tonight.

What is he using for propellant?

Is he using carbon dioxide?

Is it a.

Or is it using an actual rocket?

Fuel.

If that's the case, those are limited supply materials.

So those flying things got to have some kind of range.

It's just like electric cars.

When they first came out, no one wanted them because they only got 100 or 120 miles of range.

And then you had to sit for eight hours to charge a damn thing back and it just wasn't functional enough.

But now cars go 400 miles.

Well hell, my truck is a 30 gallon gas tank and it only goes 400 miles.

It's a big giant V8 and it just sucks fuel.

It gets 400 miles.

So I'm thinking now if they ever make a truck that has that kind of torque and can handle the loads that I need to handle, it's a viable option.

Now it, things are just flying, no pun intended, very quickly right now.

So Ziping had a comment here.

He says the ease of use of these LLMs and generation generative AI tools is really exposing the terrible literacy in adults.

Here's the problem.

Zipping my grandson.

We have to be, we have to make sure that he gets a, an elementary and junior high and high school education.

We have to make sure that he's getting that base knowledge because so many, they're going to be so exposed if they don't know anything.

You think the Google years are bad now they can just talk to their AI bots and they'll, they'll just tell them in their terms what they're trying to learn about.

I, I'm going to be honest, I use AI a lot for something I want to learn.

Or if, if, let's say I'm applying fertilizer for an uneven sized lot and I'll, I'll scan the lot and put it in and say how much do I need to use?

That's not because I don't know how to formulate it.

I don't know how to, you know, do the math to calculate it.

It's just, it's so much quicker for the AI just to generate it, generate the answer for me.

It's so much easier.

I can literally just shine it at a label, take a picture of a label and say hey, I got, I got a 60,000 square foots of lawns to do today.

How much do I need to put in my tank?

It's so much easier to do.

Think about how this is going to apply to our grandkids right now and your grandkids, even though you're younger from.

Working at a school, having Chromebooks at schools is not the best thing to do because all they do is they use a Chromebook for everything.

A lot of the students, their reading levels are not that great.

They're really low.

Yeah.

A lot of the kids can't even, they don't even know what a signature is.

They just write their name in print and they think that's a signature.

Like, they're not learning well.

They're.

They, they think they're learning well, but they're not.

They're actually falling behind because they're relying too much on, on chat to write all their papers.

They're relying on all these other AI programs to do stuff for them.

They can't even keep up with it.

So it was like, And I worked at.

It was a middle school slash high school, so a lot of the kids, they were in.

I hate to say it, but, you know, they, they were not that smart.

There were some smart ones, but some of them, Some of them were.

Reading levels were way.

Like, there was a eighth graders that had freaking second grade reading levels.

And how's that even, how's that even possible?

And you're gonna pass them to high school?

Like, come on.

Now they're, now they're the whole, oh, we can't fail the kids.

We just gotta keep pushing them through.

That is some horse.

Yeah.

Horseshit from me.

Yeah.

Like, what happened to where we had to handwrite papers and we had to freaking do.

You had to think freaking.

You had to, you had to use encyclopedias, dictionaries.

I, When I was in high school, we had computers.

But you had to go to the library to use a computer.

You didn't have a computer right there with you all 27.

But that.

You know what?

That's fine.

The convenience level.

I'm, I'm, I'm.

I have no problem with knowledge being convenient.

And the one thing I will tell you if I'm looking up something to figure out how to do or apply, like, like my, my example with the fertilizer calculation.

It didn't just tell me this much.

It literally taught me how it.

It went over and showed me the math of how it figured that up.

And once I followed it, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's accurate.

Okay, because I already know the math.

But what about kids who haven't learned that yet?

But that's a, That's a tool that's teaching you and helping you to, to expedite your job.

Yes.

Kids that, Kids that are using it to just get past through school.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

They're not really learning anything.

What are, what are they really retaining, they're not retaining anything.

And then when they get into college and then they wonder, oh, I'm failing in college and I'm not doing too great in College.

Our freaking 18 year old son's in college.

He goes to the University of Hawaii.

And I told them, you got to remember, Hawaii is a little bit different.

They don't have all the technology like.

Right.

The schools out there don't have all the technology like you did in your school.

Yeah, granted, universities are different.

Universities do.

But I told him you're gonna run into people that, that don't have the same type of level of education as you.

No, you're gonna run to some of them, they're going to be smart and they can write papers by hand and they can, they have really good penmanship and stuff like that and they read books.

You're gonna have others that just rely on, chat to write all their stuff and do all their homework.

And I told him, like, it's, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna see the difference in the variations of people.

I told him, like when I joined the Marine Corps, it was the same way.

You got people from all different parts of the country coming to, to boot camp.

And there's some people that never seen a black person before, there's some people that never seen Hispanic person.

There's some people that don't know the difference between, you know, and I ran into that and wow.

Well, I learned in the Marine Corps is that there's only, there's only, there's only shades of green.

You're all, we're all green, but they're only different shades.

But that's what they taught us.

Right.

But there's some people that, that don't get it.

Like one of my co workers that no longer is with us, he's in a, he, he moved back home, but he's from a different, different state.

He's from Iowa and, or he was.

He.

Yeah, he lives in Iowa now.

But he, he, his upbringing was different from everybody in California.

So he was like telling me how he went to kindergarten at the age of like seven or something like that.

And I'm like, I was like, no, they go younger.

My, my 4 year old's in kindergarten.

Like things are different in different states.

So I told him, like, it's just, it's just different, different places.

But you know, it's the same thing with technology, with the AI, where a lot of the kids are being too dependent on AI.

And I don't think that's good.

I think.

Here's the thing.

Learn better in school.

Here's the thing.

And I talked about this on our last episode, you know, last time we talked about AI.

I'm all for AI making children understand concepts better.

I think, I think AI can be used to help teachers.

And you know, you could, you could have a student do like a pre test, see where their weaknesses are, see how they are under comprehending the things that they're asking on the test.

You could feed that to an AI or some kind of agentic generative AI agent, whatever you want to call it, and they could come up with a learning plan and give you, you know, references and stuff in order to teach that kid the way they're taught.

Because school today, it's all cookie cutter.

You, this is the way you learn.

And if you have a learning, if you're have a learning issue where you can't conceive things the same way as everyone else, whether you're dyslexic or you're ADHD or whatever it may be, they, that AI can really do great things there.

They can make education much more tailored to each student based on their learning disabilities or whatever you want to call them.

Zipping says AI is trained on pre existing art, music, acting, media, etc.

It trains on stolen content and steals money and jobs from those the same arts they steal from.

Do you?

Yes.

And what's the key word there?

They're training.

So when, when does the day come where they actually can start creating and thinking on their own?

That's, that's the big question here.

And that's why I'm asking when do we get a full AI game that was created from an AI agent?

And how do we know it's, it's a, how can we trust that it's a full game?

You know, let me keep going here because I have several questions.

How do you think generative AI will differ from procedural generation in games like no Man's Sky?

And I think Diablo does it too.

But I know no Man's sky would have procedurally generated worlds where you had a computer basically randomly generate a certain kind of world.

And I remember playing, I remember playing that game, no Man's sky.

And it was really creative, the worlds that you see.

But usually what you would see with generative AI is you would see some patterns where you could see its limitations.

So how do you think generative AI will change things like, say different, like creating new planets and stuff in like that kind of game?

I mean, how do you think It'll differ from what procedural generation they have right now in games from regular computers that are very limited.

I think what it would do, it would actually, it would add to it.

But I don't think that, like you said, there's patterns and you're going to end up seeing the patterns.

You're going to end up seeing what's going on.

I think that it's.

Right now it's, it's not in its infant stage.

I want to say it's like in this, like pre teen stage.

Like it's still, they're still working on it to see how well they can incorporate it.

I think it's just going to take some time.

I think that when they actually can make it to the point where you can't tell the difference, then that's when it's going to be really good.

I know it's going to take a lot of time because they're still working on certain things with AI, AI still has a long way to go.

If you look at some of the things, Gemini is not always correct when you're asking, for example, you probably have to follow OSHA regulations and when you ask it OSHA questions, it doesn't pop up.

OSHA answers correctly.

And if you use chat, chat might give you a little bit more better of a detail of what close to OSHA regulations.

But if you really want the true, honest answer, you got to go straight to the OSHA website to actually get your true answer.

Yeah.

So I think that once, once it can actually be used correctly and actually developed in a good way where, you know, it doesn't look fake or it doesn't look like.

It's like you can't tell the difference.

Then I think that's when it would actually work out because I know when I worked at the school, somebody was trying to question me about some OSHA regulations and I'm like, no, I'm like, I know the OSHA regulations and this, this and this.

And they.

Well, Gemini told me this.

Well, Gemini's wrong.

It does make mistakes.

It even tells you.

Yeah, some things do.

What about the smarter enemies?

Especially with the combat loops that are more, more randomized instead of, you know, the same old.

I mean, let's face it, the enemies in Destiny are pretty dumb.

They do the same thing every time.

I think what it, what it could do, it could add what Kingsley likes the variability.

So it could actually, it could actually access a little bit more variable.

So that way you're not always the enemy's, not always coming from the Same place.

They can come from different areas.

Or I could change it up on you.

Like if you're ever.

You're already in this one area and it knows you're in this area, well, enemies are going to come out behind you.

Enemies are going to drop them.

Yeah.

Remember when Destiny promised that they said that they were going to have responsive or reactive enemies and they were going to adapt to.

So you wouldn't just mow over enemies.

They were going to actually adapt.

The enemies were going to react to where you're at on the map and stuff.

Never happened.

Never happened.

It was all, look at the, look at the old school loot cave.

You already knew where they were coming from.

That's why we had the loot cave.

Yeah, exactly.

Shouldn't cave.

And then you, oh, some moment here.

Exotic job.

You're like, okay, gotta go.

Exactly.

You know, that's because we knew where they were coming from.

Gamers, man, we can figure out the patterns quickly.

We've done it so many times.

That's what a lot of it is.

Like the old games.

Yeah, Donkey Kong, Pac Man.

Yeah, they were all patterns.

They're, they're basically, basically.

Only way you got further in these games was you memorized the game.

You memorized, you know where, you know when to jump, you know when how many barrels had to pass before you can jump over and get up the ladder in time.

And it's from trial and error.

That's why I always say get your reps in.

It's how we learn.

We learn from trial and error.

That's how we do.

But what if enemies actually started being more randomized?

That would be kind of cool.

Question five, will AI close the gap between the middle tier AA and indie studios and the big mega AAA studio publishers?

I think this is already happening.

I mean, look, let me look at, let's look at Embark.

It's not a big AAA giant studio.

It was 65 people, I think, that made that game.

And yes, I'm sure they had contractors and stuff as well, that they filled in the gaps and stuff.

But they used a lot of AI in their development, which sped things up considerably.

And they're not considered a big mega AAA studio.

But look how successful that game was.

I think it's already.

Indie studios are already closing the gap.

But what do you think?

I mean, do you think this is just a temporary thing or do you think this is the way things will be?

Will they be able to play on the same field, same level playing field?

I think because it's already there.

It's already happening and I think it's going to come out to the point where it is.

I feel that indie games are going to indie games and small studios are going to be doing great.

AAA studios, yes, they pump out really good games and stuff like that.

But with the AI helping out everybody, I think that it's gonna make things a little bit more interesting in the future because you'll be able to push out content a lot faster and you'll be able to make the games faster, but you still need that human aspect, I think.

So.

I think small, it's still gonna help, but I think the.

That's why they have small studios.

Like, I know you say Embark is one of the ones that use AI for all this stuff for like.

Well, they use.

They use machine learning with their enemies.

Their machine.

Their.

Their enemies actually learn.

Well to a limited degree.

Yeah.

But that's, That's a cool feature.

Like, why can't other games do that?

And that's interesting that they, they use that AI to, to do that.

But to me, it just questions like with other games, is it just going to take away from the actual game itself?

Because what if we did that with something like, okay, what if we went back to Destiny 1 and did it in Destiny 1 now and did that as we redid it?

You think it would make the game break or you think it would make the game better?

I'll give you an example.

I'll give you an example.

I remember playing certain strikes where you can hide underneath the bridge.

There was certain cabal strike.

I remember, I can't remember.

It was on Mars where you could hide underneath the walkways and the enemy can never get to you.

Can never shoot you, can never get to you.

And you could just sit there and potshot it until it finally.

Until its health was gone.

Then you can jump out and run and get the loot, right?

Let's compare that to arc raiders.

I had a leaper that I was attracting and I was in the escalator area going down to the train, to the extraction train that takes me out of Buried City.

I shot this damn thing.

He flied in the air, flew in the air, landed right on the entrance.

And I'm like, okay.

All I could do is just sit here and pot shot him.

I'm a Destiny player.

I know how this works.

I shot its legs off.

And you know what happened?

The damn thing hopped down the escalator and inactivated its area of effect damage on me.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

He downed my Ass.

I literally had to crawl to the extract and just lick my wounds and get out of there and stay alive and keep all my gear.

That's.

That's the secret sauce of art creators.

Sorry, you guys are going to be drinking again.

That's the secret sauce.

That's what I'm looking forward to seeing, man.

And that's machine learning now.

Zipping.

Says here a new age immersive sim RPG like Deus Ex, with AI agents responding to your choices and behaviors and play style to make a truly interactive and living sandbox would be sick.

I don't really think that's far away, man.

I don't think that's far away.

Maybe two years.

Fable.

Fable, the original Fable was almost like that because if you went the.

If you did bad things, you would grow horns and people will react to you differently.

And if you did good things, people would be like, oh, he.

Yeah, I remember that.

I remember you telling me about that.

Yeah, yeah.

So I.

They had some stuff like that, but that's a binary.

I think it.

But if they incorporated AI to do a little bit more, then I think it would go a long way.

Now you're talking about Bash.

The, The.

The brothers freaking.

No, no, it wasn't the.

Yeah, I remember that one too, where they.

You.

You could hide in a certain part of the map where they couldn't.

Couldn't hit you with their.

With their mortar strikes.

No, I'm not talking about that one.

This is destiny one brother.

This is the big centurion that carried the gun.

I can't remember the name of the raid, but you could hide under.

In the blast room, there's a.

Like a palace, like a room, and it had a bunch of upper walkways and it had.

Where you could drop down behind the walkways.

I don't remember the strike, unfortunately.

I'm sure the people yelling at the.

Yelling at their.

Their podcast apps right now.

But I remember falling down there and cheesing it where I could just sit there and just ping, ping, ping, ping.

And then, and then all the, all the scions that would come out and stuff that would try to do their area of effect on you and try to shoot you dead.

They couldn't reach you because you were in this behind the stairwell.

It was just.

That's the way gaming used to be.

I mean, it's the same with Galaga.

When you're playing Galaga, you know, there's a place on that map where you can go where nothing will shoot you.

Now, granted, you don't have a Lot of time to think about it.

But after you memorize the game, you know where all the spots are.

You know where you can escape the.

Strike in Destiny 2 for Nightfall, you can actually jump on top of.

Yeah.

On top of a thing.

And you.

The boss, you can peg the boss.

But they limited.

Now you can't jump on top of the thing and you have to go down there.

They put a physical barrier and then.

But they also, they also made it to where the boss would actually hide.

So whenever it didn't tend to hide.

Behind, it would hide.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

I'm thinking one strike.

There's only one strike that did that.

Really?

Yeah.

Probably because people are just abusing it so badly it has to hurt.

It has to hurt before they actually make any changes.

Okay, here's a question.

With the six year dev cycles still be a thing in the next few years, or will games be fully developed and tested in half that time?

How realistic is this estimation?

I mean, our creators already did it.

They made the game in three years.

Now granted, it's not a big cut scene heavy game.

It has a PV PvP loop that they're counting on.

You only have 30 minutes on the world.

It's definitely not a full Destiny game.

Let's be honest here.

But they made it in three years, man.

And they still have cutscenes and storylines and stuff in the game.

I.

How.