Discord comes to Xbox, and Hot Wheels in Forza Horizon 5

[MUSIC PLAYING] LARRY HYRB: Hi. It's Larry Hyrb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the official Xbox podcast. We're back this week. Thank you for liking, subscribing, and joining this amazing gaming journey with us. I'm going to hit a button here, a magical button. And there's--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wait, what are we doing here? What?

LARRY HYRB: Where is she? Well, actually, Rebecca is not joining us this week. Should we tell folks what happened? Because I think it's actually pretty interesting.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah. It's hot out, folks.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. Well, this is not the weather part of the conversation. But as you know, Rebecca is in New York. She lives in New York. And her apartment, apparently the air conditioner quit. And when that happens in July, that's bad.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You got to get out of that building.

LARRY HYRB: She could not join us today because I'm sure it's upwards of 90 plus degrees in her apartment alone. So we have given her a pass and said, you know what, totally get it. So we will go to the very rare--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's stretch out. There we go.

LARRY HYRB: There we go.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We're in these luxury lanes here.

LARRY HYRB: Ooh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We got bumped up to economy plus.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, we are now in a one by one as opposed to a one by three or something like that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. This is good seat pitch. I think it's funny that I rag on you for bringing up the weather all the time, and what happened? Weather happens.

LARRY HYRB: Weather happens.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Weather has exacted its revenge. So man, I'm just hearing our coworkers in London and all of Europe really sweating it out, and obviously throughout the country. I'm actually going to a wedding in Austin this weekend, and I am not prepared.

LARRY HYRB: It's going to be warm down there?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We'll be lucky to hit double digits as the overnight low. So yeah, stay cool, everybody.

LARRY HYRB: We talk about-- I know we joke. And here we are again. We're talking about the weather all the time. But I really want to-- I mean, as a former weather person you--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Not meteorologist--

LARRY HYRB: Yes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --but a weather person, a weathercaster.

LARRY HYRB: I kind of want you to get a weather map in the back.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Do one of these? OK. We've got a high pressure, a ridge as they call it, coming in, bringing in that hot air from the desert Southwest. And--

LARRY HYRB: Whoo.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --knocked out one third of the podcast.

LARRY HYRB: We're going to-- [LAUGHS] well done, well done. Way to bring it back home. We're going to talk about what we're playing this week because we are playing a bunch of things. But I got to tell you, Jeff, could we talk about As Dusk Falls, now available on Game Pass?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Yeah. I'd love to hear your experience. I was part of a really fun experience last weekend with Kinda Funny and a few hundred folks that were able to join us in LA. But why don't you go first? I want to hear your experience.

LARRY HYRB: Well, last week, we interviewed Caroline from INTERIOR/NIGHT--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: [COUGHS]

LARRY HYRB: --which is-- she is the CEO there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm sorry.

LARRY HYRB: And talked a little bit about-- what? It's OK. You all right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I thought I muted, and I totally didn't.

LARRY HYRB: You did not.

[CHUCKLING]

But you know, I started playing As Dusk Falls. You and I got early access to the game last week. And do you remember what I texted you after the first chapter?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, you weren't even at the end of the first chapter. You were like maybe halfway through the first chapter. Each chapter is about an hour. And you were like, I don't know yet. You were kind of-- you were very medium on it, I would say.

LARRY HYRB: Well, I have completely turned the corner, and I am so into this story right now that I'm playing it in between meetings.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Really?

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. I'm sitting here, and I'm playing it in between meetings. I cannot wait to see where this goes. It is-- and I told you this off the air, but I'll say it again. It is like the craziest story arcs in Game of Thrones because you're like, wait, what? That person's that person? What? Wow. So it is a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very edge of your seat.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. And I'm playing it by myself.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK.

LARRY HYRB: I haven't had a chance to play it with other folks yet. And I know you and I talked about maybe streaming it. But I just am having a great time.

This is an amazing story. And it just goes to show you how important and how powerful great writing, great performance, and a great story is in video games. It is just-- it is grabbing. You were at a special event in LA last week. Tell us about that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. So one of the interesting features of this game is that you can play a number of different ways with other people. So yes, you can sit on the couch and you can play. You can play through the network. You can just play online gaming.

There's also-- if you've been on Twitch this week, you've seen creators across the world playing the game, but you can participate through the chat. And so as options come up it's like, oh, do I go left, or do I go right? Obviously there's much more--

LARRY HYRB: Do I say yes? Do I say nothing?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, much more important stakes than that. But to give you an example, we'll say like hashtag one to go left, hashtag two to go right. And if you put that into the chat in Twitch, it starts to add up. And then it will decide one or the other.

Now, the person who's driving, the person who's broadcasting, can override the chat. They can only do that a certain amount of times. But I've seen some creators saying, OK, chat, this is all you. And I'll just punch in sort of the swiping and the QuickTime event stuff when those things do pop up. Others are going to battle with their chat. So it's been really interesting to watch.

So what we did is to demonstrate that as we did a live event last Friday that was hosted by Kinda Funny. So we had Snow Bike Mike. We had Joey Noelle, special guest Parris Lilly. And we had Janet Garcia, who we don't see on a lot of sort of Xbox programming. And the four of them joined along with Caroline, who we had on the show last week. She ended up flying out from London where she's based to join as well--

LARRY HYRB: That is amazing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --in public.

LARRY HYRB: She came all the way over to LA for this event. That is incredible.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it was awesome. So there was a couple hundred people in this theater that we rented out in Hollywood Boulevard. And everybody played live. So you had the Kinda Funny folks sitting up on stage playing, and you had the game going behind them. And then all of us had our phone out. And this is one of those times where it's like, don't put your phone away. Take it out.

And in the chat as the choices were coming up, everyone was voting. And so when each vote has dozens and dozens of votes in either direction, people were getting very into it. And as that first chapter, which starts off slow, starts to really ramp up in intensity-- like when things would happen, it was great because people were just like, oh my god, or really-- as the choices-- because you know what ends up happening. At the beginning, people were making some safe decisions, but we started getting pretty reckless as the chapter wore on. And I was like, no, we're going to do that thing that we would never do in real life.

And people-- there was a lot of vocalization. And it was just so awesome to see that and feel that in person. And so I'm seeing a lot of that with the Twitch broadcasters that are playing it.

But you even have that on the sofa if you're playing with a group of people. If you don't have eight controllers, you can play up to eight people locally. There's an app that you can download from the App Store on Android and Apple, and people can play that way if they're not comfortable with controllers. They can just look at their phone and choose the options that way.

And so I mentioned last week I've been playing with my wife. She's not a gamer, but she loves high, tense drama like Breaking Bad, stuff you would see on FX. And being able to sort of play through that and deal with the consequences has been super fun.

And so I know you're playing by yourself. You might want to just play another go around, because it probably will end up radically different.

LARRY HYRB: I may re-roll it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. People can live and die based on the decisions that you make, so.

LARRY HYRB: And I want to point something out, is you talked about the app. And I downloaded the app. And you can actually-- the single-player game, you can actually go into the app and just use the app for the entire game, if you're sitting by yourself, instead of the controller.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go.

LARRY HYRB: But what's interesting is the app is a really good way for people who aren't gamers-- and we talked about this-- who are afraid-- or not afraid, but not comfortable with the controller. Because one of the things I noticed was on the app, you get this look at the screen. So for people that aren't-- you and I know. We've been doing games for-- but it's great to like, hey. Oh, I need to look at the screen. And it's very clear. I think this even vibrates when it needs input.

So they've done a really nice job of opening up the aperture of accessibility in terms of people that are interested, but maybe are a little bit frightened of the game or unsure of themselves. It helps them along. In addition and the layer on top of it is this incredibly compelling story that can go any which way.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. We were hearing from Caroline again in last week's show, but then again-- who is the CEO, Caroline Marshall, the CEO and game designer here with INTERIOR/NIGHT. And she's like, you're going to be making a meaningful decision every 20 seconds effectively.

LARRY HYRB: Wait a minute. I want to talk about something, because you mentioned this to me off the air last week about Caroline. A lot of people may not know her history. She's been in the games industry for quite-- and made some really incredible experiences, hasn't she?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah. She had started in the industry with Quantic Dream. So most popularly known-- like Heavy Rain is sort of a legendary-- there's the Jason thing. But this is a legendary game. And that was actually the first game I ever played with my wife, but I had to play by myself. I was just holding the controller, and she would help me make decisions.

She worked on Fahrenheit, which was called Indigo Prophecy here in the US, which was the first sort of dramatic game like that I had ever played back on the PS2. And I remember very early on you find yourself in a restaurant bathroom with a murder weapon in your hand, and you have to-- and you're like, oh. You don't have time to think because you see a split screen, and a cop is coming. And I'm like, ah, what do I do? And I was like, I've never been put in that position in a game before.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And they've only built from there. So it was-- it's really interesting. Yeah. I think she also worked on Beyond-- Two Souls with Elliot Page, who I got to meet during Comic-Con that year. We're going back a ways. We're going back like 10 years at this point.

But yes. So clearly, Caroline and her crew are very well acquainted with the history of narrative games and what you can do with gameplay there. And really the focus, building from the ground up this time, was multiplayer, was playing with other people, learning about the people you're playing with, and having an incredibly twisty and intricate branching narrative. And it's so cool to see both how you are rated as a player. And are you a peacemaker? Are you someone who's a family person? Are you someone who chooses violence? You get that after each chapter.

But then you also see all the paths not taken and how they would have come together in other ways. You can even go back to some of them and replay those if you wanted to. So there's really so much there. And like we talked about last week, there's probably seven, eight, nine games worth of dialogue and capture, and everything in there for something that you might only see once.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. And to your point, you talked about that flowchart that you see at the end of each chapter, which shows you where you went. And it really makes you stop and go, oh, I wonder what would have happened here. I wonder what would have happened here. So anyway, it's on-- As Dusk Falls, on Game Pass. It's on Steam.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Cloud Console, PC, and every which way to play.

LARRY HYRB: Play it. Have fun with it. Download the app. Gather your friends around.

Now, I will say it is a slightly older game. It's nothing for the kids. There is some subject matter that is not really appropriate for the little ones.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Some dark matter, yes.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. So let's make sure you do that appropriately. So anyway, I am-- and unfortunately, I'll tell a story as well, Jeff. I texted you when I thought I was done. [LAUGHS] And I wasn't, so I'll just--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah! You don't need to ruin anything for anybody.

LARRY HYRB: But it was-- I thought-- but--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Larry. Larry. Hush. Hush.

LARRY HYRB: It twists and turns.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Hush.

LARRY HYRB: It's all about the twists and turns.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK, there we go.

LARRY HYRB: Also that's what I'm playing this week. I'm playing also the Forza Horizon Hot Wheels. We have Mike Brown later on on the show. He's going to tell us a little bit about that. Great to be back on the orange track in Hot Wheels. Always a lot of fun to do that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So beautiful. This is the fastest I've ever gone in that initial race. The Forza Horizon games, what they've done a really good job of ever since three, maybe even two-- it was two-- is this initial race that sort of shows you the possibilities and the best cars that there are available. And then you end up coming-- you start off in a smaller vehicle, and you end up sort of working your way back up. This initial race in the Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 5, you end up going over 300 miles an hour at one point.

LARRY HYRB: You're upside down. You're vertical.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There's launchers. There's all kinds of things that you're constantly getting-- moving faster, and faster, and faster, but not out of control. It's really, really cool. And I've just gotten in general back into Forza Horizon 5. And I feel like every couple of months I'm like, let me jump back in here. It's such a relaxing place to be.

And to me, it's the antithesis of playing As Dusk Falls. I was like, let me just cruise around and hit more unlock boards and the experience boards, and just hit more roads to eventually hit every road in Mexico. But Hot Wheels' content's awesome. I highly recommend you check it out.

If you happen to pick up the special edition-- I can't remember the exact name. At launch, it was the premium edition. Yeah. It was the premium edition Forza Horizon 5. You already own it.

If not, let's say you're playing through Game Pass. There's a premium add-ons bundle and an expansions bundle. You can just buy it by itself for $20 and includes 10 new cars, biomes. It's a really big area, so. And it's really fun.

LARRY HYRB: All right. I had to go off screen for a minute. I had to sneeze for a minute. I don't know what happened.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh. You did better than I did. I was like not hitting the mute button and just hacking into the microphone. But professionalism.

LARRY HYRB: Those are the games that have really captured my fancy this week. You on the other hand, let's go full screen on you because--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, what are you-- what, on me? I'm just doing--

LARRY HYRB: What are you cleaning up? Is that a kids' playground?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It is a kids' playground. I have gotten into the cult of PowerWash Simulator. I'm playing in reverse through a bit of a delay here, so it's not super easy. But if you've ever experienced the joy of shooting a high-pressure nozzle of water, a stream of water, a torrent of water into a filthy outdoor environment--

LARRY HYRB: And cleaning up.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --and watching the dirt just melt away and saying, I didn't know it could get this clean, well, we have the game for you. It is PowerWash Simulator. It is available on Xbox Game Pass. I've been playing it through cloud, and I've been playing it directly here on my console this week.

And it's funny because it's so detailed, and it's not something where you're like-- [MAKES SPRAYING SOUNDS] and I'm done. Even a small thing like a van or a motorbike, you're like, wow, the dirt is everywhere. And you just get to just zone out, listen to a podcast, listen to music, have TV on in the background, and just clean, baby, just clean.

LARRY HYRB: Now, have you ever power washed in real life?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes! Well-- yes, I have. I don't do it too often. And my wife saw me playing this. And she was like, what is wrong with you? And I'm like, I'm just relaxing. She's like, I've been asking you to power wash the driveway for weeks. And I was like, yeah, but I get achievements here.

LARRY HYRB: And I don't have to move.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't have to move. Here's the thing. PowerWash Simulator is maybe-- well, it is a simulator.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It is maybe an idealized version of power washing, where you don't really make a mess. It is only cleaning.

LARRY HYRB: Your pants don't get wet.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, exactly. Sort of the tutorial, you're cleaning a van inside a garage. You would never do that because with your power washing the dirt gets everywhere. The water gets everywhere. And you really need to have a plan in mind, especially on a windy day. Like which way is the spray going to be going so you don't spray all of the dirt off of your driveway and it just goes and sticks to the wall of the house, which--

LARRY HYRB: Now, I have not played it yet.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --I might have done.

LARRY HYRB: I've downloaded it. And again, it's on Game Pass. Can you control the size of the stream as well?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, not-- so you hit the right bumper here. You're seeing it's bigger--

LARRY HYRB: Oh, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --and smaller. But when you have the bigger spray, it is less impactful. So see, it's getting kind of clean, but not super clean. And if you hit right on the D-pad, then you can see, oh, there's the dirt. That's where the dirt's really at.

And you saw I didn't really do much of a difference. If I go to a narrower nozzle, I'm going to really get that dirt out, as you can see. Yep. See, that is clear.

There's a couple little-- I'll just give you a couple little tips and tricks that took me a while to figure out. One is that-- normally, it handles with FPS controls. But if you hit up on the D-pad, you switch into the sort of RE4 controls, where the right stick just moves your aiming reticle. And there are times when that's more convenient.

LARRY HYRB: So you can lock your position.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, you lock your position, exactly. And then also-- and this one took me embarrassingly too long to learn. Because if you hit right on the D-pad, you just keep spraying. Because my trigger figure on the right hand was sort of cramping up, and eventually I realized, oh, I can just hit-- because I'm not paying the water bill in this game.

LARRY HYRB: No.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can just have that thing go nonstop. So yeah, you can change your angles. I'm sure-- I would love to see SpeedRunners in this game because I feel like I'm not always super efficient. Like sometimes I'll carve out-- on a flat area I'll carve out a box, and then I'll fill it in. But other times, you just--

You can actually get soap attachments. You can upgrade your pressure washer to better ones. There are certain sorts of detergents that work better on wood or work better on stucco and other sorts of things. You can shoot a broader range faster, but it runs out. So there's a strategy here, Larry. You're not just--

LARRY HYRB: No.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're not just shooting water into the ground.

LARRY HYRB: I love it. I mean, actually, the reason I asked about the size of the stream is that I remember I was power washing my driveway, and I basically sliced right through the blacktop because it's so soft.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yeah, yeah. You got to be careful.

LARRY HYRB: And I just went right through it. And it was just "brr," so.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I haven't broken anything in this game. I also haven't shot my foot, which is something I've done with a power washer before. So if it's on the-- it doesn't feel good. But if you put it on a wider one, I've actually pressure washed my shoes.

LARRY HYRB: It's more gentle.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Does the job. I won't do it on my Jordans, but anyway. Yes.

LARRY HYRB: PowerWash Simulator now available on Xbox Game Pass, as Jeff said, Cloud Console and PC.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Last game I've been playing is I finally finished Trek to Yomi, which was--

LARRY HYRB: Oh!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It finished off great. We had talked about that.

LARRY HYRB: Did you tell Phil?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I haven't told Phil yet, but next time I see him or if he's listening here. And again, also on Game Pass. This is that beautiful black and white Kurosawa-esque samurai revenge tale. Relatively simple gameplay, although I will say the difficulty definitely spikes in the last two chapters. I may have dropped down the difficulty to get through to the end without--

LARRY HYRB: No judgment.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --sort of banging my head against a wall. But got to do what you got to do. I forfeited maybe one achievement, but I saw the end. I got there because I'm heading on vacation. I wanted to be done first. And I'm glad I did.

Highly recommend you check out Trek to Yomi. You're going to look at it, and I would say within the first five minutes you're going to know if you're super into it or if you're not. And I was.

LARRY HYRB: Awesome. Fantastic. Hey, we got a little bit of news here, and then we got to roll into the interviews. I know you've got a bunch of things to talk about. So let's--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, yeah, two really big things. Of course, we've talked about Forza Horizon 5, Hot Wheels. We're talking to Mike Brown here in a minute. We talked about As Dusk Falls being available now, which is awesome.

Couple more pieces of really interesting news here-- one of the things that sort of blew up in the middle of the week in a very positive way is Discord voice chat is coming to Xbox consoles for Xbox Insiders. We've told you. We listen to you.

LARRY HYRB: Yep.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The team here is very aware of conversations happening on Reddit, happening on social, the things that we hear from you when we're at an event. And we know that Discord chat through Xbox is something that has been highly requested. So it is being tested now.

We have a blog post all about it. And Larry, you've got a lot on this coming up here too. So I won't say too much other than we've heard you. It's being tested. And I think it's pretty awesome. So you can get started by linking your Xbox account and your Discord, your app.

LARRY HYRB: It's for Insiders right now. Let's be clear.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, of course. So if you head over to news.xbox.com, you'll see that up there close to the top.

LARRY HYRB: Or--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can find out all about it.

LARRY HYRB: Or just hang out. In just a few minutes, I'm going to do an interview with one of the engineers.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Or do that. Or do that. Yes. We've got pictures and all those other things. So very cool there.

And also I was watching-- so a number of women's soccer tournaments are taking place now, the US over Canada, in Concacaf-- a close match. Kind of is getting really good. But also the finals of the Euros, the Euro W in Europe, as you would imagine, taking place.

And it was an opportunity where we shared a story of how Xbox is investing in women's sports around the globe and sort of celebrating that. And we're working with the WNBA, the New York Liberty, and the Atlanta Dream. We've been working with the England national team, the France national team. And we have a cool video that was narrated by Vanessa Bryant. And so that sort of talks about these journeys of female athletes that we're working with, like Sabrina Ionescu in the WNBA and others as well.

So recommend you check that out. And we also have some information on how you can contribute and sort of the other beneficiary groups like Girls Who Code or the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation that we're investing in who are doing great work. So check that out over on Xbox Wire.

LARRY HYRB: Great video, by the way, that's on that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yep.

LARRY HYRB: It's a cool video.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: News.xbox.com. And there's going to be a really cool-- I can't wait to see this. Xbox is going to be revealing a one-of-a-kind home basketball court for the New York Liberty. It's going to be installed in the Barclays Center. This isn't a virtual thing. And we'll be sharing more on that--

LARRY HYRB: Fun.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --coming up on here pretty soon.

LARRY HYRB: I look forward to looking at the paint.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look at you, Larry. You know your basketball terminology. You seemed like you were more of an outside shooter. You had a hook shot, I imagine.

LARRY HYRB: I did. I did.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: A runner, a runner. Throwing at the peach baskets.

LARRY HYRB: [LAUGHS] All right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Moving along. Those are the big pieces of news. We're into the summer, but it's great to know that there's things to play and that there's really cool features that are coming. It's a fun time.

LARRY HYRB: Let's clear the deck. If you can bring us into those interviews, that'd be great.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. So first off, as we talked about Discord integration, a lot of things I want to know, a lot of things you want to know. Well, fortunately, we're bringing in Bill Ridmann, the Xbox engineer who is working-- or one of Xbox engineers that are working on this project. You'll be able to learn a ton more. And then we will welcome here on launch week for Forza Horizon Hot Wheels expansion Mike Brown. He's the creative director at Playground Games for Forza Horizon 5, and he's going to take us in the fastest experience that we've ever had in Forza.

LARRY HYRB: I know a lot of folks are really excited about this next feature that is now available for some Xbox Insiders. Discord voice chat is coming to Xbox consoles for those of you on Xbox Insiders. And joining me today is the legendary Bill Ridmann, who is an engineer on the Xbox team. Bill, great to see you.

BILL RIDMANN: Awesome to be here, Larry.

LARRY HYRB: I'm really excited about this. Tell us a little bit about what this means. Because I mean, we announced this a couple days ago. This is a pretty cool experience that, frankly, you're not going to get on any other consoles right now. It's voice chat-- Discord voice chat on your console, right?

BILL RIDMANN: That's right. So we've been working with our partners at Discord for the past several months in order to really tackle one of our most requested features. And that's being able to natively on your console, being in a Discord call, whether it be a server voice channel, or a direct message, or a group call, to be able to be in that call directly on your console, have the audio mixed, have features that are similar to party chat like switch to game chat, mute others, change volume control, a lot of the native functionality you would see in Xbox parties here today on Discord for console.

LARRY HYRB: Now, I want to be clear. You say here today this is for Insiders. And for those of you that aren't familiar with our program, we have an Xbox Insiders program, which allows some folks-- if you sign up, you opt into it. And it allows folks to see an early access to some features that Bill, that you and the teams are working on. Some of them are out for a few weeks, and they get what we call GA, general availability, means goes to everybody. Some of them actually take a little bit longer as we test it out and refine the process.

Let's talk about what it means. Because this doesn't replace Xbox voice chat. This is almost a third spoke on the wheel, isn't it?

BILL RIDMANN: Yeah. So this definitely does not replace Xbox party chat. In fact, we're continuing to make improvements and investments to party chat today, and we still view party chat as a really important part of the Xbox overall offering. This is more as another option for people who really enjoy Discord. We know, for example, particularly with cross-platform play where PC players really like the Discord toolset, they can now use Discord to talk with their console friends when they're doing cross-platform gameplay.

LARRY HYRB: Let's go ahead and show a little bit of it. I know maybe some folks-- we saw some screenshots in the blog post. I want to warn folks, this is a live demo. So anything could happen here. We're going to do our best here.

I've got a console here. And I'm going to be looking over my console a little bit here as we set it up. But this is the console over here.

And what I'm going to do is Bill-- I'm going to join from my mobile device. And I'm going to open this up here. And I'm going to join the Discord app. And I'm going to join a channel. And then tell us a little bit about what that means there, Bill.

BILL RIDMANN: Yeah. So I think we collectively, Discord and Xbox, felt a full Discord app that has all the text and text entry, and all the richness of Discord. Didn't really have the best experience on the console. We think collectively that Discord is best experienced with its full feature fidelity on a desktop or a phone. And so instead of building a lot of the Discord full heavyweight app experience, we have users today start off by just selecting the channel on their phone.

LARRY HYRB: In the Discord app?

BILL RIDMANN: For example-- in the Discord app. Some of us have a lot of servers that we're members of. A lot of these servers have a lot of voice channels. We felt like the selection process would be pretty quick from the Discord app.

So once you're in the Discord mobile app, basically select the voice channel you want to join. You should then, if you just swipe up, see the option to transfer to Xbox. And that should basically take you really quick to the Xbox app to send the command to the console to join that voice channel.

LARRY HYRB: Now, I've already-- I went ahead and I joined a voice channel right here. And you can-- oop. It says right there, "Try voice chat on console." So if I click on that, you can see-- oh, it keeps going away because I keep turning around. But there's a little note here at the top that says "Transfer to Xbox."

So I'm going to swing over to my console. And I'm actually going to click on that. So you can't really see it here, but I'm going to click on Transfer to-- and just transfer to audio. It's one button press. You can see right here it says I've been connected.

Bill, you had created a podcast channel there. You and I are in there with Evo. And there's some really cool things here because this is all native in the guide. This is all new functionality. And you've got the options right up at the top here. So show me-- tell me a little bit about what we're seeing.

BILL RIDMANN: Yeah, so exactly. We took a lot of the core concepts of Discord, worked with the Discord team of making that available on the console. And then we added some of the features that you would find only on-- [CHUCKLES] that's my talking-- that's my partner-- or my work partner Eric on this project.

LARRY HYRB: OK.

BILL RIDMANN: But yeah, we took some of the core concepts from Discord that are part of the Discord ecosystem, such as changing volume, deafen. And then we took some of the features that we have that people expect from parties, such as our party overlay, switching to game chat. And we're basically able to basically create an experience that has a lot of the core Discord features, but then is also a very familiar experience with those who are used to using Xbox parties.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, I mean--

BILL RIDMANN: So you'll find it in all the same sections.

LARRY HYRB: It's all in there. And you can see there's a little Discord app at the top. And even when I dismiss the guide and I'm playing a game, when I bring the guide up, I just go right over to parties and chat, and there it is. You can see it right at the top. It's active. I see the icons of who's in my channel.

And what's interesting-- the other thing that's interesting here is that other people will see-- and I'm going to swing over to the desktop app right now. And you look in the lower left-hand corner, and you can see right there, connected on Xbox. So it shows me what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So it's really-- frankly, it's cool deep integration, Bill, that your team has done.

BILL RIDMANN: Yep.

LARRY HYRB: And you've gone through the Xbox and even to a point the Discord app, and kind of Xboxified it and made sure that people know where they are and what they're doing. That's real exciting.

BILL RIDMANN: Yep. Yep. That was the entire idea.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. I mean, that's it. I mean, what's great is, again, it's right here in the guide. And I can start the experience from my phone. As you said, a lot of people are on different channels, lots of different channels. They can make the choice here, click a button, and it basically throws it to the Xbox. And I put my headset on, and off I go.

So that's fun. So it's really quite seamless. Now, this is on Insiders now. How will it roll out in the short term?

BILL RIDMANN: Yeah. So we've been rolling out to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead Insider rings. And we'll be rolling out to our other rings-- Beta, Delta, Omega as both Microsoft and Discord feel comfortable with the quality and rolling out to more people. So we want as many people to get it as fast as possible, but we want to make sure all the experience is ready for those expanded audiences.

And one more thing I do want to point out for the Alpha and Skip-Ahead Insiders is in order to activate all the functionality in the Discord app to transfer to Xbox, what you'll find today in the parties and chats tab in the guide is basically a QR code entry point in the guide. And that's really needed if you want to try out the feature today. It puts your Discord app in a mode to show that transfer to Xbox button.

Basically, we have hundreds of thousands of people in the Xbox Insider program, but we're using the publicly available Discord apps that are available to millions of people. And so that's just our way right now to just make sure the feature is enabled for those who are in the Insider program and have a console that has the functionality activated.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. So basically what Bill's saying-- that's engineer speak. [LAUGHS] Basically, there is a little bit of a sign-up process that you have to go through with Discord to basically say, here's my Discord account using the app on your mobile device. And then you go through, and you'll scan a QR code that'll pop up on the screen on your console. And then from there you're linked, and you're off to the races. So it takes all of five seconds. It's really straightforward.

It's really great to see this type of integration. I mean, as I said a moment ago at the beginning of the interview, this type of integration is something that you'll only get on Xbox right now. We integrated with Discord-- was it 2018, Bill? Is that what you told me?

BILL RIDMANN: Early 2018, yep.

LARRY HYRB: And that was really-- we showed you that you were playing a game. That was really basic, right?

BILL RIDMANN: Well, yeah. Yeah. So that's basically-- we added account linking with sharing your Xbox presence on Discord.

LARRY HYRB: Yep.

BILL RIDMANN: Still a very useful feature for your Discord friends to see what you're up to. But yeah, we think that this is certainly the next step of integration between Discord and Xbox.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, and having the voice chat directly on the console. The Discord voice chat is great. And being able to control everything from your mobile device or your PC is also a lot of fun.

Bill, I really appreciate your time. I know you're going to be taking feedback about this. You're going to be working on the user flow and the features, and so forth. So that's going to be something that's going to happen over time, right?

BILL RIDMANN: Like any feature, we are always attentively listening to feedback, learning how we can tweak things. And we, collectively Xbox and Discord, we do view this as just a step in a journey where we've had a lot of really exciting early conversations of what's next beyond voice chat on Xbox. And I don't have anything specific to share about that at this time, but I just say that we have some really exciting stuff in the works.

LARRY HYRB: Great to hear. Anyway, Bill, Bill Ridmann, Xbox engineer working on the Discord integration with Xbox. Appreciate your time today. We'll have you on again maybe when the feature generally releases to everybody. But thanks again for your time.

BILL RIDMANN: Awesome. My pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

LARRY HYRB: Hot Wheels returns to Forza in the first eagerly awaited expansion of Forza Horizon 5. And joining me today, Mike Brown, creative director of Forza Horizon at Playground Games. Mike, great to have you back on the show.

MIKE BROWN: Yes. Larry, thank you for the invite. I'm a fan of the show, so great to be here.

LARRY HYRB: Well, I got to tell you, I've had a chance to play the game, Forza Horizon, the premium add-on bundle we'll talk about a lot in a minute. But what a fantastic success you guys have had since launch. I mean, you launched in November 2021, and 20 million players in six months. That's amazing.

MIKE BROWN: It's pretty good. It's pretty mind blowing, to be honest. Yeah, the largest launch in Xbox history, they say. So yeah, it's been pretty incredible.

Obviously, running into launch, we felt like we'd made a really, really great game. But the reception from the Forza fans and the wider Xbox community has been incredible. It's really blown us away.

LARRY HYRB: Well, congratulations. This is the first expansion for Forza Horizon 5. And this-- I mean, when we revealed it last month at the showcase, people were like, this looks amazing. It was in a great trailer. You really-- it was perfect the way it landed and the way it felt.

But tell us what it was like in the creative process leading up to this, working with Mattel and Hot Wheels. I mean, this is stuff that I know I grew up with. I'm sure you grew up playing Hot Wheels and the infamous orange tracks going through your living room and up the stairs, and everything. Tell us what that was like, because that's got to be real-- that's got to be a dream come true for the right person.

MIKE BROWN: Absolutely. I think that almost everybody at Playground Games-- in fact, I shouldn't say almost. Everybody at Playground Games is a huge fan of cars. And I think a lot of people that become adults and are fans of cars, that often started with toy cars and Hot Wheels when you were a kid.

And that's absolutely true for me. I know that's definitely true of the design team over at Playground Games as well. For this concept, obviously we had made a Hot Wheels expansion before. We made one for Forza Horizon 3. And effectively since that came out, our fans have been asking for more Hot Wheels. And it's been a while, been a while, but we needed to have the right concept, the right idea to really go with that, to go back to Mattel and ask them if they would let us play with their toys.

And yeah, it was after we shipped Horizon 5. We knew that we wanted to do something really big and really exciting for that first expansion and do something that felt really, really different to everything that was in the base game. And we had this concept for what if you could have it where there was these separate biomes? They're really close together so that you're one second in this frozen volcano area, and literally three seconds later you've crossed the bridge, and you're now in this rainforest.

And it started to form into this idea for the Hot Wheels Park, where it's these three-- four biomes. You've got the Giant Canyon, the Ice Cauldron-- its proper name-- and the Forest Falls, and also the Horizon Nexus in the middle, which is where the Horizon Festival sits. And-- oh, go on, Larry.

LARRY HYRB: No, no. I was just-- we're watching some of the footage here, and I just-- I don't even want to cut away from the footage because it's just so fantastic. And it just-- it looks-- it's just fun. And we see some of these iconic Hot Wheel cars that we remember playing that you also brought in the game. So it's not just the tracks. It's also the cars, right?

MIKE BROWN: Absolutely. So there's 10 new cars in total. Four of those are Hot Wheels cars. Now, three of them are cars that Mattel and the Hot Wheels team have built real-life versions of. So there's the Battle of the Blade, the Deora II, and the Chevrolet COPO Camaro. That one was done in collaboration with Chevrolet, as the name suggests.

But there are three cars that exist in real life that you could go and sit in that you could drive. There is a fourth car, the Hot Wheels Baja Bone Shaker. That for us is an extremely rare instance of a car that we've added to the game where there is no real-life version of it, where we had to take the toy, take that little-- that tiny little diecast toy and create a life-sized version of it with the idea of what would this look like if it was a real Baja truck that would be expected to maybe do the Baja 1000?

The real fun part about that creatively was that we were working with Mattel. And those Mattel toy designers obviously have an idea in their head when they're building the little toy what the real-life version of it looks like. They probably have that version first and then create the toy. And we were going the other way. We've got the toy, and we're making the real-life version.

So bits of it where we've taken the headlights of something, tried to go, what does this look like if we blow it up 64 times? And they'd go, no, no, it wouldn't look like that if it was real. It would have-- and then they would then describe what that headlight cluster should look like in real life. And it was a real funny exchange back and forth where we were making the big version of the toy, but in their head they already had an idea of what the real-life version of that car would look like.

LARRY HYRB: I just imagine the meetings that you had with Mattel either at Mattel or at Playground or at Microsoft where-- I mean, there's toys on the conference room table. I mean, you're down like this zooming along with them. I mean, it's every person's dream who's ever played with cars.

MIKE BROWN: Yeah. And the Mattel designers were exactly right, exactly like you'd expect them to be. They're huge fans of Hot Wheels. They're just playing with them. They're rolling them around in their hands just all the time. They're just like-- because they're such a tactile, physical toy. And when you're talking to them, just playing with them all the time, it's really fun engagement, and it's one where we've had a real great creative spark with them. We've loved sharing ideas with each other.

LARRY HYRB: When you were working on this expansion pack-- and it's available now. You can pick it up for $19.99. When you were working on the Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels pack, certainly you've got the cars. You've got the track. Then you got to have to plus it up. Because like I said, OK, here's a track that goes straight. But you can do things with those iconic orange tracks that you can't do in real life that you're going to do in the game, right?

MIKE BROWN: Yes. So part of the real fun of building an experience like this is taking those tracks, which obviously in real life are a foot tall, and blowing them up to real size, and then thinking about how our very authentic Forza physics system interacts with that. So when you have a piece of banked track which goes to a 90-degree angle, we then throw a car through at high speeds. We're not doing any shenanigans there. The car going at full speed is giving off enough downforce to help it stick to the surface there at those quite insane angles at times, as we're seeing right now on the screen. We don't have to-- we're not doing anything--

LARRY HYRB: Unnatural.

MIKE BROWN: --anything unnatural behind the scenes there, exactly. It's just the physics of the cars, physics of our physics engine at work with those tracks giving you that experience, which I think is why it's so much fun. The cars still behave the exact way you would expect them to, but you're doing such incredible stunts and tricks with them.

LARRY HYRB: When you were working with the Mattel team and bringing some of these elements into the game, were they gamers? I mean, I hope they played Forza Horizon or they played some of these racing games.

MIKE BROWN: They were absolutely fans of Forza. They all came into this conversation having already played the Horizon 3 expansion, having that idea in mind of what a Forza expansion with Hot Wheels could look like, and then we were bringing it to them, and here's where we want to take it this time. These are the new things we want to do. Here's where we make it feel like an entirely new experience.

But no, they were absolutely big fans of gamers-- sorry, big fans of games, I should say-- big gamers to not muddle up my words there. And yeah, they were bringing in plenty of ideas. So yeah, they were really, really fun to work with.

LARRY HYRB: You mentioned Forza Horizon 3. Tell us what the difference is in this add-on versus the new one for Forza Horizon 5 versus the one from 3. I mean, certainly it's using the new power of the console. It's a brand-new game. But tell us about some of the base elements that are slightly different.

MIKE BROWN: Yeah. So back on the Horizon 3 expansion, you are almost always on track. You are on the orange track for almost all of the experience. There were a few areas where you could get off and drive around a beach or something, but almost entirely the experience took place on the orange track.

Now, first of all, we've plussed up the experiences you can do on track. So we saw in the trailer there there's now a magnet track, which allows really crazy stunts and driving. It also allows us to have really steep inclines without having them only be one directional. So where you want to have someone go down this really steep drop, [INAUDIBLE] allows them to come back the other way and not have roads in the game you can only drive in one direction.

We've also got ice track, water flume track, rumble track, all these new on-track driving experiences people will be able to explore. And they can get off the track. And we've got these now massive biomes to explore where there's so much off-road stuff they can do as well.

So there's now what we call hazard races, which take on bits of ice track, but you can jump off the track. You can drive around on the terrain and then get back on the track again, which gives it a real different feel. And it brings into play a lot of the off-road vehicles, which are a huge part of the Horizon experience, but didn't really get a look in in the Horizon 3 expansion.

LARRY HYRB: I don't know about you, Mike, but when I was building my Hot Wheels tracks through my house growing up, I mean, part of it was the cars did leave the track. Sometimes they flew into my sister. So that's by design. [LAUGHS] Can't say you can do that here.

It was great to see just some of what you've done here, but I assume that we've got-- we saw a little bit of it here. We've got that iconic Hot Wheels loop. That's what we all want to see. And can we drive in that? What's that like?

MIKE BROWN: Yes, you can drive it. And there's plenty of them throughout the world. And as I said earlier, there's no physics trickery there. You need to be going fast enough to get through that loop, or your car will absolutely come unstuck and fall off it, just like with the toy. If you don't put that speed boost close enough to the loop when you're building with the toy, your car will just not get around it. So it's exactly like that in the game. So yeah, make sure you're going fast as you hit them.

LARRY HYRB: And I want to point out a couple things. If you're new to Forza Horizon 5, it's available on Xbox Game Pass. You just need to play for about 15 minutes in the game to unlock how you get to the Horizon Hot Wheels Park. And it's right there. You'll see an item on the map. You drive there, and you just-- you get a nice beautiful little intro screen. So it's really pretty straightforward to find, isn't it?

MIKE BROWN: Yes. Yeah, as you say. It was a criticism, I would say, of our previous expansions. Sometimes you'd have to play quite a lot in the base game to get to that expansion that you bought. So yeah, it is really quick. You just play through the initial drive, the showcase that comes after it, and then I think you're straight in there.

That's the point as well. In the main game, you connect online. So if you're a brand-new player-- maybe you've got a friend who's also a brand-new player-- you can both play through those first 15 minutes, then join together because online becomes available, and you can start the Hot Wheels expansion in multiplayer as well, which is a first for us. We've never allowed that before.

So that's a new feature. And it just works from the start. You can play through the entire expansion in co-op if you want to.

LARRY HYRB: Fantastic. Forza Horizon 5, the premium add-on bundle available right now for $19.99. You can grab it. You can start playing immediately. It's a ton of fun.

I want to again congratulate you on this amazing milestone of hitting 20 million players in six months with Forza Horizon 5. I mean, that is fantastic. And I know that you guys have a lot planned. And really appreciate your time today, Mike. Any final words before I let you go?

MIKE BROWN: Yeah. I think I'll echo what you just said. The expansion is available now. It's a load of fun. There's a bunch of ways you can get it.

You can purchase it on its own for $19.99. You can get that premium add-ons bundle. So if you're a Game Pass subscriber, you can get the premium add-ons bundle, which gets you this expansion, the car pass, VIP, another expansion in a little while all for a really, really, really great price. So you don't have to buy the whole premium game to get access to this. You can just get that bundle, which is great if you're a Game Pass subscriber.

LARRY HYRB: All right, Mike. Mike Brown, creative director of Forza Horizon at Playground Games. Mike, thanks again. And congratulations on the success you've had with the game and the recent launch for the Hot Wheels pack.

MIKE BROWN: Thanks so much, Larry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thanks Bill, and thanks Mike, bringing us awesome new features and amazing fast experiences to Xbox players. It's a good week. Who said this summer's slow, Larry? Not me. I didn't say that. Hot, but not slow.

LARRY HYRB: Hot everywhere. In fact, so hot we can't even-- we couldn't even have Rebecca here this week. Hopefully, she'll be able to join us--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's hope so.

LARRY HYRB: --the next time. Speaking of next time, we're going to be off air for a couple weeks. We've got vacations coming up. To your point, it's summer, so we've got a couple things we have to do that we're not going be able to have a show.

But we'll be back soon, I promise. We've got a couple things. In fact, I'm going to be doing a cool appearance that's-- when is that? That's--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, if you're listening to this the day this comes out on Friday, it'll be the next day, Saturday.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Major Nelson, our very own Xbox's Major Nelson appearing-- you were the first-ever guest on the Kinda Funny Xcast, and you're coming back to help them celebrate a huge milestone, aren't you?

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, they're going to be-- they've got 100 shows already in the can, which is extraordinary. I'm going to come back on. And I'm going to bring them a little gift. I'll just say that. I don't want to tell you what it is, but I'm going to bring them a little something. So you'll have to tune in tomorrow.

But I'm excited to reappear on the show. I mean, I'm such big fans of them. And you talked about the event you guys did in LA last week, and that looks like it was a lot of fun. And they're such a great part of the community. So I'm really looking forward to--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, Mike, Parris, and Gary. They might have some other special guests, but you'll be the most special.

LARRY HYRB: Aw.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't know if you know this, Larry. I was talking-- I had talked to Mike through this, through the cloud many times, but never actually met him until last week. He is taller than I would have expected, which I think is the case for everyone you end up meeting. You're like, oh, I imagined you as being only 6 inches tall, and you're not. So Mike, anyway, he's come a long way. When the first Xcast episodes came out, he was pretty rough.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And he's really harnessed his craft. But I think secretly deep down he wants to show you how far, you specifically--

LARRY HYRB: Oh, really?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --how far he's come as a host. I think you were something of an idol to him. So you should-- no holds barred critique of his interview style. He really has-- he has gotten a lot better.

LARRY HYRB: Well, to your point, I've watched some of the-- I try to watch the shows as much as I can. I'm not able to catch all of them. And you're absolutely right. He is-- I mean, he's been-- he's not only practicing, but he's actually doing, and it's great. Practice, as I tell my daughter, practice makes progress. So he's been progressing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go. Look at that, not practice makes perfect-- such good parenting, Larry. That's good parenting. You're not expecting perfection. I think it's just great that he and really Xcast in general-- but Mike is just such a force of positivity for the industry, which I think is really, really valuable. And there's a big place for people in this industry who get you excited about things.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And that's the type of thing that we want to-- let's share the things we're enjoying. We hope you enjoy it too, whether it's a restaurant review, a video game that we're playing.

LARRY HYRB: The weather. [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Except for that, anything but that.

LARRY HYRB: But anyway, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. As we record this show, I haven't recorded that segment yet. So I will be doing that later this week, but it'll air on Saturday. And I'm looking forward to joining them and seeing them, and come bearing gifts.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. You can just look up Kinda Funny Xcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts-- SoundCloud.

LARRY HYRB: Really the only two things you need to subscribe to are this show and that show. That's it. That's really it, in my mind.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's it. That's the whole ecosystem. There's nothing else out there.

LARRY HYRB: Don't worry about it. Anyway, anything else? Otherwise we're going to wrap it up, Jeff. You and I are going to continue on with our summer. So thanks for coming in. Rebecca, wherever you are, I hope you're staying cool. And hopefully, we'll get everybody back together very soon.

Again, don't know when we'll be back. We definitely won't be around next week and maybe the week after because I've got some travel I have to do. So we're going to figure that part out. But thanks for joining us, liking, subscribing. Do you have anything you want to say about that, Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, I think you've covered it all, Larry.

LARRY HYRB: All right, Jeff.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're the professional here.

LARRY HYRB: We'll see everybody next week. Make sure you hit us up on Twitter if you're interested in chatting with us. You can see it right here on the screen. Find me @majornelson. Or if you're listening, you'd find me @majornelson and Jeff @jeffrubenstein. So it's pretty straightforward.

All right, everybody. We'll see you next time. Have a great couple weeks. Bye bye, everybody.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Bye.