600: Hello Mixer and the last stop before E3 2017

Larry Hryb: Welcome to show number 600. My name is Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Sitting across from me is-
Jeff Rubenstein: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 600!
Larry Hryb: Yes, 600. Well, there's an asterisk there you know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wind-aided.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it's 600-ish.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's number 600. It's not necessarily the 600th show.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and we were thinking about doing something special here but we said, "No. No, we're not going to do that."
Jeff Rubenstein: No, it's Friday. There's a long holiday coming up here.
Larry Hryb: We got a long holiday, a bank holiday on Monday.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. I'm thinking about going on annual leave.
Larry Hryb: Are you? Apparently, that's the thing now.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's that time of year.
Larry Hryb: Apparently that's the thing now, but it's great to see you, Jeff. You and I haven't seen each other all week. This is the one time this week that we've seen each other. I didn't tell you what happened this week, did I?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I just know that you've been feeling great.
Larry Hryb: Oh man, we did a bunch of stuff on Monday. I left the office, went home, slept until Thursday morning.
Jeff Rubenstein: How much NyQuil did you take?
Larry Hryb: I don't know what it was. My body was just so exhausted. I caught some weird flu when I was down at 343. I'm blaming 343 by the way.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's called Halo fever.
Larry Hryb: I don't know what it was, man, but it just wrecked me but I'm back.
Jeff Rubenstein: And better than ever.
Larry Hryb: You'll hear a little bit of it in my voice, but it's been a busy week this week. Later on in the show, we've got the gentlemen from Mixer coming by, Matt and James.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. In case, you've missed the news, Beam is now Mixer.
Larry Hryb: Mixer, the service formerly known as Beam.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, with all of the wonderful things in terms of subset, second latency, and interactivity, and all of these things. We'll be talking about the future, really, of Mixer and where they're going.
Larry Hryb: Those guys will join us later.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: I'm really excited.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know Matt live.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I've talked to Matt before. We did a live show on Thursday. When I got into bed Monday night, I crawled out of bed two hours before that broadcast. Apparently, the internet liked my wardrobe.
Jeff Rubenstein: They always do.
Larry Hryb: I don't know why.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because your wife has good taste.
Larry Hryb: She does. She does. Anyway, here we are, it's Monday, you and I played what?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's show number 600. How many shows would you say have we done or have you done?
Larry Hryb: Easily 500.
Jeff Rubenstein: Easily 500.
Larry Hryb: Easily 500.
Jeff Rubenstein: I feel like I've probably been on close to 100 at this point.
Larry Hryb: You've been here for quite a long time.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I'm in the, not the golden age of Major Nelson.
Larry Hryb: I'm not going to do like they do on Saturday Night Live where if you host five episodes, you get a jacket.
Jeff Rubenstein: Five timers club, 500 timers club.
Larry Hryb: Five timers, whatever it is.
Jeff Rubenstein: I still get to bring you breakfast. I've stolen that role from you.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. So you're all that. So thank you for that, by the way.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, of course.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Last week, we didn't do a show. I was down in Los Angeles for the Destiny II event.
Jeff Rubenstein: You played a little Destiny, didn't you?
Larry Hryb: Yes I did. Played it on PC.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right. How'd it look, how'd it feel?
Larry Hryb: Yes, yes, and yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm very excited.
Larry Hryb: Had a nice chat with Luke Smith, who I've known for a long time. We're real excited. Of course, it's coming to Xbox One, coming to PC, it'll be in other consoles, the other console as well, PlayStation.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's always funny when ... because Bungie is right down the street and-
Larry Hryb: From us, right.
Jeff Rubenstein: -I was in a series of meetings literally across the street from them all week, but you got to go down to LA to see them.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: And how many people ... We have E3 coming up in a few weeks and it's like, "Oh, all these people from right nearby."
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a tremendous amount of game development that happens in Seattle and specifically in Bellevue for some reason.
Larry Hryb: I find this hard to believe, but I think it's a little more affordable than Seattle.
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe.
Larry Hryb: I don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's very rapidly going away.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, anyway. Enough about that inside baseball stuff. You don't [crosstalk 00:03:52] that, do you?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, maybe I do.
Larry Hryb: Do you? Like I said, it's been a busy week. I was down at Destiny II, went down and back in that day. Last Friday did something we've never done before. That was a live This Week on Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I saw that.
Larry Hryb: That was a lot of fun. Did it from the studio, brought in Bill and Toby. We talked about the latest update for Xbox One, some cool stuff. So, thinking about maybe doing that because again Beam, now Mixer.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I mean-
Larry Hryb: Sub-second delay with the Q&As.
Jeff Rubenstein: You've been over 100 episodes. You got to mix it up. You do a live one.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Then you got to do an episode where you get a dog, and then a baby or something. A skateboarding dog. You should do that. Poochie, I hear, is available.
Larry Hryb: Poochie's still available?
Jeff Rubenstein: Poochie's available. Yeah. It didn't really take off. But you know, if you need a radical cohost, I recommend-
Larry Hryb: Yes. I have one. You.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, on this week on Window ... The one or two times a year where you're either on vacation ... You never take vacations, by the way. You really should take vacations.
Larry Hryb: Well yeah, you're right.
Jeff Rubenstein: You should. You should. You're never going to look back and say, "You know what? I'm really glad I worked every day." There's no perfect attendance award.
Larry Hryb: Well, if I do take these annual leaves, would you fill in This Week on Xbox for me?
Jeff Rubenstein: I would be more than happy to do that.
Larry Hryb: Would you? Because there are so few people ... I mean, everyone wants to do it, but there's not a lot of people that I would trust holding the show. I mean, it's really our show as the community.
Jeff Rubenstein: It is.
Larry Hryb: But I just carry the mantle forward.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly. You just have the teleprompter handy.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: But I feel like Graham's taking all the vacation.
Larry Hryb: He is.
Jeff Rubenstein: You should take some of it too, after he-
Larry Hryb: I don't know if you saw the back and forth he and I were having on Twitter, is he's ... I don't know if it's a threat, but he's threatening to wear a kilt to E3 this year.
Jeff Rubenstein: And he would probably do it properly.
Larry Hryb: As a proper Scot, he would, and I have nothing to do to that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm happy for his culture. I think if he's going to do it true Seattle style, it needs to be a Utilikilt, with the big boots.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Or actually, maybe the toe shoes.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Those are pretty popular. The Vibrams, yeah. Those are ... It's a thing. Yeah.
Larry Hryb: No. Can we get out of here?
Jeff Rubenstein: We should probably talk about games.
Larry Hryb: Let's talk about games. You and I, of course the big news this week, lot of news this week, but you and I played the new Overwatch Anniversary Edition.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, we did.
Larry Hryb: Did you unlock some skins?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, not the two that I wanted.
Larry Hryb: Which ones?
Jeff Rubenstein: I want the D.Va. Of course, I want the D.Va skin.
Larry Hryb: Which one?
Jeff Rubenstein: The one that's sort of, she looks like ... it's like the greaser, like the '50s one.
Larry Hryb: So the blue one?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, the blue one.
Larry Hryb: I have that one.
Jeff Rubenstein: Of course you do.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. I liked it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I saw Michael McWhertor, who's a writer for Polygon, good writer. He just tweeted out, as I was driving in here, at a red light, looking at Twitter. In one loot box, he pulled two of that skin.
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I mean, that is like, "Play the lottery tonight, Michael." Because you've already won. You've already defeated those odds.
Larry Hryb: You know my favorite thing is, we were talking about when we were playing last night, is that all of the characters now have a dance.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I have to get that.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and they may not call it just dance. They call them different things. I think one of them, I think Pharah does the Hustle. Do do do do do do do do do, do do do do do do.
Jeff Rubenstein: I kind of know that.
Larry Hryb: You do?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, a little bit.
Larry Hryb: All right, here we go.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do the Hustle. Yes. And then I really want Cyborg: 76. I've been playing more. It's a year old now. I've been playing more of this game than ever. Not too many games mature like that.
Larry Hryb: It's one of those games, and you and I have played them on our various services over the years, where you and I, we have our work lives and we spend a lot of time together at work. We have our families. We love our families. But it's like, "Hey. We want to get together and kind of hang out." And it's an easy game, because we've played it so much, and it's second nature.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's sort of like a standing date, is what my wife calls it. She's like, "Do you have a date tonight?"
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then it's like I look online and it's like you and Treit and True, and-
Larry Hryb: [Jervis 00:07:44].
Jeff Rubenstein: -Litheon, and Rabbit, a few others. It's like, "Okay, we have a quorum. Yeah, I got a date tonight."
Larry Hryb: Let's go. My wife does the same thing. It's funny, because we were playing the other night, and when we were playing the other night, she peeks in my office, says, "Who's the woman you're playing with?" And I was like, "There's no ..." And she was hearing ... because normally I have the voices turned down, so I play through my headset, and she's like, "Oh, okay."
Jeff Rubenstein: We're going to have to get my kid in here at some point, just so you can hear.
Larry Hryb: Winky face.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly. Everything she says, like an emote.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Your daughter speaks like-
Jeff Rubenstein: Like D.Va.
Larry Hryb: It's frightening.
Jeff Rubenstein: And she keeps hitting the "Is this easy mode?" Over and over.
Larry Hryb: She does not. I told you that. Remember when it came out, I'm like, "That sounded like your daughter."
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm like, "You can only do that if you like hit 20 eliminations or something like that." What else have you, when you were out, were you just completely ... You were just kind of ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I was incapacitated. I wasn't really on Twitter that much. I was just doing a little bit of thing on Twitter. What was I playing? I don't think I was playing anything. Seriously.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's when you know you're really sick.
Larry Hryb: I couldn't even get to my console. I couldn't even get out of bed.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. There's times where I fantasized, I was like, "I just wanna be sick enough to not have to come into work, but feel good enough that I can just bang out games for like a week straight."
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just to catch up.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because I'm so far behind already.
Larry Hryb: My wife was so upset with you, by the way.
Jeff Rubenstein: Why? What did I do?
Larry Hryb: Because we did the show a couple weeks ago. And you know, I tweeted out the show was available, and you tweeted out few hours later, you were talking about my bedroom habits. She was like, "What did you say of me?"
Jeff Rubenstein: Is she not proud of her heat air vent thing?
Larry Hryb: The BedJet?
Jeff Rubenstein: The BedJet.
Larry Hryb: Got to call it by its proper name, dude.
Jeff Rubenstein: I went home and I showed that to my wife.
Larry Hryb: And what did she say? She kind of shook her head because you were-
Jeff Rubenstein: No.
Larry Hryb: Your wife is not amused by me, is she?
Jeff Rubenstein: She respects you. I think she doesn't necessarily have the tolerance for tinkering that your wife has.
Larry Hryb: I'll be clear. A lot of the tinkering I do in a sandbox. In other words, I don't expose her to it until it's kind of ready for prime time.
Jeff Rubenstein: If I put a 10 horsepower engine at the foot of the bed-
Larry Hryb: Oh no, it's under the bed.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, it still might be a bit more than she's willing to handle.
Larry Hryb: Fair enough.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm happy when she leaves the window open.
Larry Hryb: Tell her she needs to be more open in the bedroom.
Jeff Rubenstein: I ...
Larry Hryb: I caught you off-guard, didn't I?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you did. She's not listening.
Larry Hryb: Good, so what are we playing?
Jeff Rubenstein: What are we playing? You know, I want to call attention to a game. People are always sending us information about titles they want us to play, and then hopefully talk about it on the show. I don't get too many of those from an @microsoft.com address.
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: And an engineer, someone who works here.
Larry Hryb: A coworker?
Jeff Rubenstein: A coworker who, he has designed a game in his own time, and it has now released. It's part of the ID@Xbox Program. It's an Xbox Play Anywhere game called A Walk in the Dark. And this is a puzzle platformer, sort of in the style of Super Meat Boy or VVVVV, you know that game where you flip upside down?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Where it's like very short levels where you have to get through most of them. If you do it right, you can beat them in 30 seconds or less.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: But there's well over 100 levels, and it's about just getting through. Everything's like a one hit kill, so it's about doing these perfect speed runs time and time again. I played the first few levels, and it was kind of hard, and I died a few times, and I was like, "Oh, I gave it a shot." And for whatever reason, I picked it back up again.
Larry Hryb: Oh no. That's when you know it's scratching some itch.
Jeff Rubenstein: It did. It was enough to-
Larry Hryb: "I can do this better."
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, like, "You know what?"
Larry Hryb: "I can do this."
Jeff Rubenstein: "Let me give this one more go." And I was playing on a laptop, and with the Xbox Play Anywhere, just the save ported right over, and my wife was watching, and I ended up just playing for a good long time. Probably got up to about level 50. It's a fun game. I would take a look at it. It's definitely I would say reasonably bargain priced. It's called A Walk in the Dark. It is Xbox Play Anywhere, and congrats to our coworker for ... It shows that anybody can-
Larry Hryb: What was his name? Do you remember?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll have to look it up.
Larry Hryb: It's funny, because I just want to explain to everybody, Jeff and I work at Microsoft. Microsoft's a big company.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well over 100,000.
Larry Hryb: When I joined the company, I think it was at 30. 30,000. But as Jeff said, it's well over 100,000 now, and unfortunately we just ... I know there's a lot of people that internally listen to this, and we just don't know everybody.
Jeff Rubenstein: Bruno Pereira Vidal.
Larry Hryb: So Bruno, there you go. Thank you for the game.
Jeff Rubenstein: Thanks for sending it over.
Larry Hryb: Thank you for giving us a heads up.
Jeff Rubenstein: And great job.
Larry Hryb: We've never met Bruno, but now we feel like he's now part of the family.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Absolutely.
Larry Hryb: There you go.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think it just shows that anybody can, if they put their mind to it, and the ability to make a game is no longer something that, "Well, I've got to make this a full-time job. I have to join a major company that is creating games." One person can make a game, and make a good game. I think that's kind of awesome.
Larry Hryb: Hey, speaking of games, which is what we do here, big news this week. Game Pass-
Jeff Rubenstein: Xbox Game Pass.
Larry Hryb: Launches on June 1st with over 100 games, and if you're a gold member, you can get in now.
Jeff Rubenstein: Already have it now. So over 100 games. I was looking through. There's a huge variety of games between major blockbusters like Halo 5 or Saints Row 4, NBA 2K16. Also, a lot of really cool Xbox 360 games, strategy games, stuff that I've enjoyed playing over the years like Defense Grid, there's Banjo-Kazooie's in there, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. There is a Bioshock, all of the Bioshocks are in there. Never been a better time to catch back up on those if you've never played them. It's pretty awesome how many ... Give you a little bit of inside baseball here, for media and folks that we work with, we're sending out hard drives. You're going to need ... There's so much to play, it's just like, "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which is kind of great for [crosstalk 00:13:52].
Larry Hryb: And anybody can ... Everyone calls it like Netflix for gaming, because it's you pay one monthly price, one low monthly price, you get access to a boatload of titles.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, all you can play. More [crosstalk 00:14:03].
Larry Hryb: I want to be clear. There's been some questions out there. This is not streaming. You are downloading it and playing it, right there offline. So once you download it, you're good to go.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you don't have to worry, "Oh, I don't have fast internet," or something like that. "Is that going to impact gameplay?" Absolutely not.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Once you've got it, you're playing it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you're playing it and there you go, and of course your save goes with you, it's ... You essentially own it, for all intents and purposes. So anyway, Game Pass is big. Check that out. We'll put a link into the-
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah, dropping that in now.
Larry Hryb: We'll put a link in there, and you can figure that. What else came out this week, Jeffrey?
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, you know, in addition to Mixer, which we'll be talking about a little bit-
Larry Hryb: We'll do that later.
Jeff Rubenstein: Xbox Game Pass, you went and you played Destiny.
Larry Hryb: I did.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's been pretty busy. How about The Culling? You know these battle royale games?
Larry Hryb: Yes, I do. I've heard about them.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's a very, very big, very popular genre on the PC.
Larry Hryb: It's a genre that you haven't quite rung its bell.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well here's the thing, is I am terrible with mouse and keyboard. I've played The Culling at PAX East. At that point, I knew someone who was working with that team, and they'd let me know it was coming to Xbox, and I was so happy about that. Actually, we talked about that at the show.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, we did, at the show.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've messed around with Battlegrounds, PlayerUnknown's, I'm terrible at it, Rust, because mouse and keyboard. But now I get to play, starting June 2nd exclusively on Xbox One, the Culling is going to be bringing Battle Royale to console [crosstalk 00:15:33]
Larry Hryb: Mad Max is in Game Pass.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah-
Larry Hryb: I'm sorry. I was just looking through the [crosstalk 00:15:37]
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot of really good stuff. Why don't I just link-
Larry Hryb: Fable 3.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a page, and I'm just going to link directly to it, that has just every title. So take a look. If there's more than a few games in there that you haven't played, it's probably going to be a great deal for you.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, sorry.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, so The Culling's going to be coming, how about GWENT public beta? You've been playing this, haven't you?
Larry Hryb: I have played. I did a video for it. I got my kegs, so loot crates, they call them kegs there. It's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to that. That'll be a Play Anywhere title. It's not now. It's in public beta, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's in public beta, but it's free, and everyone's invited to download it, so I'll put a link to that. Yeah, GWENT was something I got very into playing The Witcher, and there's a lot of potential there.
Larry Hryb: Did you finish the DLC?
Jeff Rubenstein: No. I haven't even started the DLC.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I started ... I finished one. I've got to go back and do the other one. You've heard me rave about it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm so far behind, I've been playing Mass Effect. I've gotten into that one, but that's a huge game.
Larry Hryb: I've been playing Prey a lot.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I need to get to Prey.
Larry Hryb: You do.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's right up my alley, but I have to finish one game before I start the next one.
Larry Hryb: I know, I know. You're probably the same way I am where you can have one single player going and one multiplayer.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's exactly it. It's Overwatch or Mass Effect, and then in between there I'm trying to get in ID games whenever I can. Speaking of more ... The Circus of Values continues. So it's not just Xbox Game Pass.
Larry Hryb: "Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the Circus of Value." You know who did that voice?
Jeff Rubenstein: You told me once.
Larry Hryb: Ken Levine.
Jeff Rubenstein: Really?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, from Bioshock. I remember you telling me about that.
Jeff Rubenstein: "The Circus of Values."
Larry Hryb: That's maybe the most memorable soundbite out of all those games. With all the little [crosstalk 00:17:11] sounds, and ...
Jeff Rubenstein: We should buy more things out of vending machines. The Japanese have it right, Larry.
Larry Hryb: They've got a lot of weird stuff in their vending machines too.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, the canned coffee, I was mostly talking about.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know, I booked a trip. I'm going to be going for a good long time this winter.
Larry Hryb: Are you going to Japan?
Jeff Rubenstein: For two weeks.
Larry Hryb: Oh that's ... Where are you going to go? Go to Tokyo?
Jeff Rubenstein: Of course we're going to Tokyo.
Larry Hryb: Flying to Narita?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. We're also going to go up to Sapporo and up to Hokkaido in the northern island.
Larry Hryb: Oh, yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot of cool stuff up there.
Larry Hryb: I want to go up there.
Jeff Rubenstein: We were on a family trip a couple years ago, and I ran out of stuff to watch. There wasn't a lot I really wanted to watch on the TV that's built into the seat, and they had just a bunch of five minutes touring, "Oh, visit this city."
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Travelodge.
Jeff Rubenstein: I just love watching the one in the city I live in, because then I'm like, "No, that's not true. No. They're completely ... the traffic's terrible. They wouldn't be talking about it."
Larry Hryb: Right. Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Or, occasionally you see something you like. But I watched one on Sapp-o-ro or Sap-poro, I'm probably saying it wrong. This thing's like, it had just the most happy voiceover person, and I'm like, "My life is deprived by not having gone here to this snow festival and all." Anyway, so apparently they've ... We're going. I've never planned a trip this early.
Larry Hryb: I was going to say, that is not like you at all. Yeah, we haven't been to Japan ... You and I have never been together when we were working together.
Jeff Rubenstein: No. We should go on up. Yeah. No.
Larry Hryb: But I would love to go back to Japan.
Jeff Rubenstein: We've probably been to the same Tokyo Game Show before.
Larry Hryb: Oh yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Last time I was there was actually when the PS Vita was revealed. I was there for work.
Larry Hryb: Was I there for that?
Jeff Rubenstein: You would not have been invited.
Larry Hryb: No, I wasn't at the event. I'm just saying that year.
Jeff Rubenstein: No, it was a stand-alone event.
Larry Hryb: Because you guys were doing it off ... You do it at a hotel in downtown.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It was near the Tokyo Tower, if I recall.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I do remember that.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was like six years ago.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So, anyway, a lot has changed in that time, which brings us back naturally, of course, to Games with Gold. So Xbox Games with Gold is really good. Whenever we reveal, I love just going to Reddit, and just seeing the thread.
Larry Hryb: Well, I want to be very clear. Let me just tell you a little bit more inside baseball. I usually get an email about what they are a little bit before we announce them, and I always forward it to you. Because I have my own thoughts, and I never comment, because I want to see what your comments are, and you and I are pretty much dead on.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. This is a great month. This is a month just rife with AAA. At the first half of the month, June 1st through 15th, Assassin's Creed III.
Larry Hryb: AC3.
Jeff Rubenstein: Through the magic of backwards compatibility, and SpeedRunners, which will debut in-
Larry Hryb: It's a brand new title.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: You don't even own it yet.
Jeff Rubenstein: No.
Larry Hryb: And you'll already have it for free.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly.
Larry Hryb: If you're a Gold member.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a cool looking title, I think a combative speed running game. Those all tend to be single player games, so it's cool. Second half, so we have Dragon Age, the original Dragon Age-
Larry Hryb: Which you loved.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which you might not have also played, through the magic of back compat. Watch Dogs, the original Watch Dogs, set in Chicago-
Larry Hryb: Which I finished, yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was the first game I ever bought for this generation.
Larry Hryb: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: I preordered it before I even worked here.
Larry Hryb: That's right.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was a lot of fun.
Larry Hryb: Do you remember that trailer?
Jeff Rubenstein: I do remember. That made a big impact. That was, I remember everyone standing around saying, "How is that possible?"
Larry Hryb: Right, "What?" Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then, also some DLC for a free title that I've also been playing, and that's Phantom Dust.
Larry Hryb: Phantom Dust. Classic OG style, OG Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I played a bunch of that last night, and I had never played the original.
Larry Hryb: Right. Right. Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, it's really fun.
Larry Hryb: It is a lot of fun, isn't it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It's very different, but the combat is really cool, and once you sort of get used to the fact that it's an older style game with some conventions from 10, 15 years ago, there's a lot there. And considering it's free, you have no reason not to play.
Larry Hryb: All right. What else do we have?
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, so a couple games coming out. This one was announced this week, Hello Neighbor, a stealth horror game. I'm looking at the art, and I'll link to it, and it just reminds me if like 1987 Tom Hanks vehicle The 'Burbs was turned into a video game. It looks like that.
Larry Hryb: Okay. That's a call back.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It's a movie that my grandparents rented for me a lot that they should not have rented for me, because it involves a grisly murder, when I was single digit age.
Larry Hryb: Yes. They still living in Philadelphia?
Jeff Rubenstein: Of course. Well, those things were kind of like not uncommon.
Larry Hryb: It's funny you brought up Tom Hanks, because when I was sick, I was watching, I was flipping through Netflix or Hulu or whatever, HBO Go, and I ended up on Cast Away.
Jeff Rubenstein: You know, I never watched Cast Away.
Larry Hryb: It has one of the most horrifying plane crashes.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's why I don't ... I travel a lot. Someone told me that, and I travel on planes a lot, and I refused to watch it.
Larry Hryb: As do I. But I watch it, and I'm like ... I had a 100 degree fever, and I was sweating, I was like, "Oh my God." It was terrible.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that's why I will never watch that movie.
Larry Hryb: Seriously, it is one of the most ... Anyway, Tom Hanks.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, when you fly a lot, you kind of just have to ...
Larry Hryb: I don't know why it doesn't bother me.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, this is what I always say. I look around at the flight crew smiling, the flight attendants, the pilot. Would they have shown up for work if they thought there was any real risk, if they thought it was anymore dangerous than taking the bus? And the answer is no.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's the way I look at it. They're here.
Larry Hryb: Did I tell you what happened when I was going down, did you see-
Jeff Rubenstein: No, don't tell me if it was bad.
Larry Hryb: No no, this is completely different. So it's famous. It's known globally that my travel karma is terrible. Okay, you've witnessed it.
Jeff Rubenstein: The worst, yeah.
Larry Hryb: So we're going down to the Destiny 2 event.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a two hour flight? What could happen?
Larry Hryb: That's what I thought. So we get on board, I look to my right, I sit down at my seat, I look to my right, and did you see what I ... here, I'll show you the picture.
Jeff Rubenstein: I did see it.
Larry Hryb: There's a guy, all I see is the rear end of a guy in a jet engine.
Jeff Rubenstein: But all the way into it.
Larry Hryb: All the way, and clearly it just, and there was one guy, and then two, and then three, and then a supervisor, and then a lot of tools.
Jeff Rubenstein: I saw some fan blade box, something.
Larry Hryb: All of a sudden, we're on the ground for an hour. Oh, by the way, and that doesn't even include the live trout eggs that were being loaded on.
Jeff Rubenstein: What?
Larry Hryb: You didn't see that photo, did you?
Jeff Rubenstein: I missed that one.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that was a weird one. I don't know what it was, but I looked out, and Jeff, you'll see this. Look at the-
Jeff Rubenstein: Did they need to fly the trout eggs down? Is there an emergency trout situation in-
Larry Hryb: Look at that. Could you look at that? Tell me what you see there.
Jeff Rubenstein: It says "hatching eggs." I wonder what they're-
Larry Hryb: It's not even just ... they're not live eggs, it is actively hatching.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're in the middle of it. You can hear, like, omelets being made in the-
Larry Hryb: And I'm going to hear this in the hold.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wow. Yeah, if you ever watch what they load onto ... If you ever just, as they're loading the plane, if you're sitting near the baggage ramp where they're putting stuff in there-
Larry Hryb: Like I was.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. It's like there's suitcases and all that stuff that you'd expect, but then there's always a bunch of other stuff. Like hatching eggs.
Larry Hryb: You know what I've not seen, that I hear is on a lot of planes?
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm?
Larry Hryb: Caskets. Because they're carrying the deceased somewhere.
Jeff Rubenstein: I guess so.
Larry Hryb: Anyway. Okay, way to bring the show down, Larry. Nice work.
Jeff Rubenstein: That was you.
Larry Hryb: Nice work.
Jeff Rubenstein: I shouldn't have brought up Tom Hanks. I really regret it now. Another bit of news.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is, again, a great weekend for bargain folks. If you don't want to spend any money at all, yes, you can play Phantom Dust, you can also, if you somehow haven't, you could play Fallout 4.
Larry Hryb: Ooh, and Overwatch.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So there's a free ... And Overwatch?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Overwatch is free this weekend too?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, this weekend.
Jeff Rubenstein: So Overwatch, Fallout 4-
Larry Hryb: If you are on Xbox One, this is what you should be doing.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, from the time that we've recorded this all the way up through midnight on Sunday the 28th, you can play Fallout 4. It's the first ever free weekend exclusive to Xbox Live Gold members. So good.
Larry Hryb: And of course, you download it, you play it, and if you decide you want to keep it, of course your progress ... You want to purchase it, it's available for a reduced price, and your progress is saved.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's about 67% off. And this was just about Game of the Year.
Larry Hryb: I love that game. You know I do.
Jeff Rubenstein: Two years ago? So there's no way you're going to beat it in a weekend. If you-
Larry Hryb: I haven't talked to Todd Howard in a while, which is always ... yeah he's always working on something.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, I'm sure you'll have the occasion to run into him at some point, but yeah, Overwatch Game of the Year Edition. There's too much to play. We're coming up to E3, and I know we're going to be traveling a lot.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: We got to buckle down, and we've got to beat some games. You got to beat Prey. Tell me about Prey.
Larry Hryb: All right. So I'll tell you a little about Prey. I'm enjoying it. I obviously am playing a lot of it. It reminds me a little bit of Dead Space, there's some open world elements to it. You know, the way they do the open world is, it's like you have a level to go through, and it doesn't matter how you get ... And there's multiple ways to get through this level. But one thing, there's this interesting ... You can go thought the space station and go to different areas, Jeff. What's interesting, there's also this other mechanic is, if you get to a certain area, you'll find an airlock that you can unlock to go outside and come around-
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, you do a lot of that stuff in Dead Space.
Larry Hryb: -to go to another unlocked airlock. So you actually have to discover it first-
Jeff Rubenstein: So once you do it from the inside-
Larry Hryb: It's kind of like a fast travel, but not really.
Jeff Rubenstein: And there's probably some hazards out there, aren't there?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, of course.
Jeff Rubenstein: That game looks really good.
Larry Hryb: You should try it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know. I have it.
Larry Hryb: Really great, the puzzles are fun, the environment's fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: I hear it's scary.
Larry Hryb: Well, that it is.
Jeff Rubenstein: With these mimics, these coffee mugs that will attack you. Is that a thing?
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Yeah. It is.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well, as someone who drinks a lot of coffee, that's frightening.
Larry Hryb: So, any who.
Jeff Rubenstein: Just a couple of other games I just wanted to talk about that are out now. Shadow Warrior 2, I'm hearing this one get some nice buzz, and anything from Devolver Digital is usually worth taking a look at. That's an ID@Xbox title.
Larry Hryb: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: And DLC for Halo Wars 2, Sergeant Johnson is fighting again, and that is of course an Xbox Play Anywhere title. So you buy that, you get that DLC on Xbox One, it also will be there for Windows 10.
Larry Hryb: Hey, you know what? We should cover this in the gadget section, or we can do it right now. You know what else happened this week is new Surface.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Hryb: Do you have any details on that?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. So it's the Surface Pro, it's got four times the amount of battery life, or 3.5 times, that's a lot more. As someone who used a Surface Pro as their daily driver, Surface Pro 3 before I got my Book, it already had pretty good battery life, so more than tripling that's pretty awesome.
Larry Hryb: And the I5 is fanless?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, and the I5 is fanless. The engineers here, they're always working under the hood. So I think if you were to just glance at the Surface Pro, the new Surface Pro, you might not know all the things that it does, but I think that-
Larry Hryb: That's why Panos needs to peel it back and romance it.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is the kind of stuff that people ask for. They're like, "I want more battery life."
Larry Hryb: Who doesn't?
Jeff Rubenstein: And that doesn't always happen.
Larry Hryb: Look, here's a few things. You want to have more money, you want to be thinner, you want to be younger, and you want more battery life. Who doesn't want those?
Jeff Rubenstein: Maybe not in that order.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, you choose what order you want.
Jeff Rubenstein: I would put battery life a little higher up than that, but ... Yeah, and there's some new Alcantara type covers. The same colors, they match up with the Surface Laptop.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which I was-
Larry Hryb: Did you like the burgundy?
Jeff Rubenstein: You know, the burgundy's very nice, but I'm a teal man, and the cobalt blue, that's the one that caught everyone's eye.
Larry Hryb: Yeah the cobalt blue. I think I'm going to swing that way too, because I just really like that. The burgundy's just a little too ...
Jeff Rubenstein: It's very rich the burgundy, and I think in different lighting it's going to look very nice. I think those are going to be your two most popular. I wouldn't sleep on the more champagne-ish color. I can't remember exactly what it was called right now, but it's ... You have your silver, which we've had in all of our Surface products, but there's more of a gold color.
Larry Hryb: If you want to take a look at any of them, just go to your local Microsoft Store.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: They have the new Surface Laptops, and probably by the time you listen to this, they may have the new-
Jeff Rubenstein: Surface Pro.
Larry Hryb: The Surface Pro as well. At least for you to look at. They'll be available in June, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. That's correct. June 15th.
Larry Hryb: Okay, well there we go. So that's our gadget section, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. I need to get it, and they we can really talk about it.
Larry Hryb: Sorry about that. I still got a little bit of cough going on. What other news do we have here, Jeffrey? Again, if you missed anything, just go to my blog at majornelson.com. Follow me @majornelson and you'll hear all the details. You know what I really want to talk about? Far Cry 5, available for pre-order now.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. You know, if you want a lot of hot takes on the internet, then the Ubisoft team definitely obliges. Looks really cool. I saw a lot of stories coming out this morning. So after the reveal of the key art, we know it takes place in Hope County, Montana. It's very interesting. I was reading a lot about it. I'll link out to a story that talks a little bit more about what they're attempting to do with the game. We're big Far Cry fans. The thing that jumped out at me the most is that you could play coop for the entire game. Larry.
Larry Hryb: I'm sorry. I'm just looking at a piece of email that came in that's exciting. Go ahead.
Jeff Rubenstein: No way, so-
Larry Hryb: Coop the whole game, which you and I have done.
Jeff Rubenstein: So you've always been, since 3 and definitely in 4, you were able to play coop when you're attacking the bases or something like that, but then when it came to story missions, you couldn't play those in coop. Apparently, you can play the entire game in coop.
Larry Hryb: Which is what we love.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which is what we're going to be doing.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: So looking forward to that, and you can also customize your character. You can change, while it's a first person game, so I guess we'll see how that plays out, but you can play as both a man or a woman. You can change a number of different features there.
Larry Hryb: Do do do do do do do ...
Jeff Rubenstein: So I want to know who's doing the voice.
Larry Hryb: Do do do do do do do ... Take a walk on the wild side.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've never been to Montana.
Larry Hryb: That was more about you can change the play as a man or a woman.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh okay. Yes.
Larry Hryb: I haven't been to Montana either.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. We're not far from Montana.
Larry Hryb: Have I? Well, you were almost there when you went out to Idaho.
Jeff Rubenstein: I went to Idaho.
Larry Hryb: Right?
Jeff Rubenstein: I should have just kept on driving.
Larry Hryb: You should have just kept on going.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Well maybe tourism will tick up.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, Montana.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm assuming we'll see more on this game. I don't know much, but I have to imagine we'll be seeing more soon, and as big of a Far Cry fan as I've been for the last couple, looking forward to it.
Larry Hryb: Alright. We're going to take a break now, and I'm going to go grab the guys from Mixer, and we're going to talk all about the Mixer news this week. You ready for that, Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh, I've never been more ready.
Larry Hryb: Here they are. Matt and James from Mixer.
Matt Salsamendi: Yo, what's up?
Jeff Rubenstein: How you guys doing?
Matt Salsamendi: Doing good.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot of crowd noise in the back.
Larry Hryb: Just imagine that it's post. Now you guys have had a busy week. First of all, I want to back up a little bit, because we've chatted a little bit before. Matt, you and I have chatted before. James, I've never really had you on the show.
James Boehm : Yeah. Thanks for having me today.
Larry Hryb: This is way overdue, so I apologize. So it's great to have you guys. But I want to back up a little bit. You guys are the founders of Beam, which is now known as Mixer, right?
James Boehm : That's right.
Larry Hryb: So let's talk a little bit about that, how you guys started the company, and then of course, what an amazing week you guys have had.
James Boehm : Yeah, so in 2014, Matt and I were working with a group of content creators that voiced concerns over the state of the streaming industry. There wasn't really an option out there that allowed them to connect with their audiences in the way that they wanted to.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
James Boehm : So we, Matt and I, saw an opportunity to create something that we were personally really passionate about. We love streaming, we love watching streamers. So it started out as a passion project for us. That we were able to get a couple of our friend and content creators. We had worked on the platform and start growing it.
Larry Hryb: And there you go. And then a few years later, now just be clear, Microsoft bought your company lees than a year ago.
James Boehm : Yeah. It's been super fresh. We just launched in early 2016. We announced the acquisition in August of 2016, so-
Larry Hryb: I remember that.
James Boehm : You can imagine that it's been a bit of a wild ride, and we're so excited for what's next.
Larry Hryb: And then this week was a big week because you've relaunched the service as Mixer, which is the new name for the service. Can you tell us a little bit about why the name change? I mean, I know you posted something on ... Matt, and for both of you guys I'll put a link off to you Twitter accounts. I saw you posted something on Twitter the other day, which really a lot of people are like, "Oh, okay. I get it."
James Boehm : Yeah, for sure. We wanted to pick a name that represented everything that we've been building in the communities that were on Beam in the past.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
James Boehm : We wanted a name that represented us bringing people together. We wanted a name that represented communities, and the Mixer name really does that, right? We're bringing people together. We're creating a fun environment where people can interact with broadcasters, discover new content. What I think is really important, though, is we wanted a name that we could market globally. We wanted a name that we could take to the world. We wanted things like the dot com, and those weren't things that we could do with the Beam name.
Larry Hryb: Right.
James Boehm : Right? So the Mixer name really marks our passion for evolving the Beam community, growing it, bringing it to more people, more audiences across the world.
Jeff Rubenstein: So a lot of times, when I was first getting introduced to Beam, there was a lot of talk about the tech, sub-second latency ...
James Boehm : And FTL.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, all this stuff, but when I hear you talk about it, it's about community and how the tech sort of serves that. So you talk about how you're using your advanced tech to actually make it better for streamers, better for viewers.
James Boehm : Yeah. I think the important thing is the tech, like you said, is just the enabler. Right? At our core, we're about community building, and one of the most important things that you need to build communities is the ability to interact, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
James Boehm : And that starts with chat interaction, and on Beam, you have ... I'm sorry, on Mixer, you have super low latency chat interaction, so you can go in and with less than one second of delay be having a conversation. It's almost like you're on a Skype call with your viewers. And that makes it so much easier to hold really deep connections with your community. It makes it easier to grow them in the first place, and that's really important, but it goes further than that. As a community grows, you've got thousands of people watching. It's difficult to maybe read every single chat message, so we provide an interactive STK that allows game developers to interact directly into the games themselves.
Larry Hryb: Nice.
James Boehm : So what that means is that if you're playing Minecraft as a streamer, if you're playing the Java version of Minecraft, for example, you can install a mod that allows your viewers to create weapons for you, choose what enemies you have to fight, and really morph the game environment to be more fun and interactive.
Larry Hryb: And to take you places as frankly that you as a streamer just may not have thought you could go.
James Boehm : Absolutely.
Larry Hryb: Based on the audience.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, I thought that was incredible. So we're pretty friendly with a guy down at Telltale Games, Job Stauffer. And I'd ran into him about a year ago. He was just coming back from the UK where they had done something where they allowed people to, in a live theater, play through one of their Telltale games-
Larry Hryb: I remember that.
Jeff Rubenstein: And it was like "Whatever the crowd chose, then that's what we did." And I was like, that completely changes the single player experience. So I was very excited to see you guys announce crowd play. Talk about that.
James Boehm : We did. So, Job's a great guy. Job at Telltale Games, they've all been working super hard to bring crowd play to life. The idea behind crowd play is that the Telltales game series, you're picking, essentially it's like choose your own adventure, choose your own outcome.
Jeff Rubenstein: Option A, B, C, whatever, right?
James Boehm : Yeah. And the options are pretty cool. So you've got games like The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, and they had events where they would bring people into a room, and everybody shouting at the TV, everybody shouting at the content creator, like, "Hey. Let's go do this, let's go here-"
Larry Hryb: "No, no, no, let's do that."
James Boehm : "Save this person," right? So what Telltale Games crowd play does on Mixer is it allows the viewers to actually have a say in what ends up happening, and the way that works is we've got buttons beneath the stream that pop up in real time that correspond to what's going on in the game, and the viewers get to vote on different things, talk through the options, and it all happens super seamlessly and with super low latency.
Larry Hryb: And the democracy takes over, and the majority wins.
James Boehm : Exactly.
Jeff Rubenstein: Because in those games, you have to make those decisions quickly, and that could only happen though that tech.
James Boehm : Exactly.
Larry Hryb: Wow.
James Boehm : Yeah, so I think Job was telling us a lot of those decisions are only like five seconds or less, and that just wasn't something they could provide on other platforms, where it's 10 to 15 seconds of delay.
Larry Hryb: It's perfect for Mixer.
James Boehm : Exactly. With that 200 millisecond delay, you can instantly see what's happening and make decisions on the fly.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, well 200 milliseconds. That sounds like a lot when you say 200. 200 of anything can be a lot.
James Boehm : It can be.
Larry Hryb: But that's not.
James Boehm : It's about a fourth of a second.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
James Boehm : That's actually how fast it is.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's crazy.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think it's also interesting, because those types of games weren't necessarily good stream fodder before, because ... This all of a sudden makes it so much more ... I'm more interested now anyway, going back to some of the titles that I haven't played, and doing it that way, because you're playing in a room with other folks. I want to talk about this page, and I'll link to it in the show notes, which is-
Larry Hryb: What are we looking at?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's on your About Platform, and it's all these other things that you guys have either done or are thinking of doing. I don't know if there's any particular things you want to call out. Co-streaming is something that we're particularly, as Overwatch players, incredibly excited about doing, and I think we maybe we should start talking about co-streaming.
Larry Hryb: But we should always talk about, you know, you had a big week this week. We talked about the name change, we talked about that, but also it dovetailed with a lot of new features that are going to be available to the streamers, so I wanted to have you guys go though that.
Jeff Rubenstein: You said it better than I did, Larry. That's why you're the host.
Larry Hryb: Well, that's just trying to get it through there faster.
James Boehm : Yeah. We launched co-streaming, which is an industry first feature that allows up to four broadcasters to join their streams together, and have one consistent chat experience across all four of those streams.
Larry Hryb: Yup.
James Boehm : So as a broadcaster, if you're playing, let's say Overwatch, and you want to invite your friends, you can join your streams. All of your viewers can see those streams on one page, and get to chat with the other people from the other streams, but through one chat.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
James Boehm : So it's a really cool experience.
Larry Hryb: It seems simple, and it seems obvious, but no one's really done it properly before.
James Boehm : Exactly. So we're making it incredibly easy to get started co-streaming, and we've already seen some amazing, amazing streams out of it.
Larry Hryb: Oh, we need to do this, Jeffrey.
Jeff Rubenstein: See people follow you, you have the audience, but then when we play Overwatch, then they'll see who's actually carrying the team.
Larry Hryb: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We should play with these guys. Do you guys play Overwatch?
Matt Salsamendi: I do.
James Boehm : I don't yet.
Larry Hryb: Okay, that's all right.
James Boehm : I do play some PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Larry Hryb: See now that's something that Mikey Barr has been getting me into and I saw that you are going to play with him. He's been after me, in fact, he barged in. I was streaming on Mixer last week. Did you hear about what happened?
James Boehm : I didn't but I can take a guess.
Larry Hryb: I apologize in advance, things are gonna get a little weird here.
Jeff Rubenstein: They were weird before you walked in, by the way.
Larry Hryb: Yeah and starting with I don't know how I ended up here but I ended in this weird esoteric forum about weather. I like weather, I'm a weather nerd. This guy had taken this ... Remember the Weather Channel back in the day? The Weather Channel had this automated thing that you could put up that local cable-
Jeff Rubenstein: Local on the 8's.
Larry Hryb: Local cable companies would insert every 15 minutes. Anyway, the guy basically released that code into the wild and you could run your own. So I was running it on my Windows 10 machine and it popped up and said, "Is this game? Do you want to stream it?" With Windows 10, you guys, Mixer is built into Windows 10. I said, "Yes, I do." So I started streaming this Weather Channel, which is just a weather report and it filled up with about 200 people. Mikey Barr comes in, he's like, "What are you doing?" I said, "I don't know. Come play player." It just kind of went side, I told you, you wouldn't know where it went.
James Boehm : You're right, I didn't know where that was going, but I would've loved to see it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, people were a little confused in the chat. I got the notice that you were streaming and I didn't know what you were doing.
James Boehm : Can you make that a thing? I would watch that if you were to do that.
Larry Hryb: I'm telling you, it was quite ... I'm going to see if I can find, while we're talking here, I'm going to kind of pull it up because I can pull up my video OnDemand and it was kind of crazy.
Matt Salsamendi: I know music is ... There you go. I know music is popular on Mixer and I've seen channels as like Monstercat that's always doing. I think it's about time for a Weather Channel that happens all the time.
James Boehm : Yeah, I've seen an auctioneer, like live stream auctioneers.
Larry Hryb: What's he auctioning? Or she?
James Boehm : They're auctioning stuff from this website. It's super random but-
Larry Hryb: Is this internal? [crosstalk 00:40:33] There was a bunch of stuff missing from my office. I think somebody was doing it from my office.
James Boehm : Quite possibly.
Matt Salsamendi: Larry Hryb's exclusive Xbox.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, here it is.
Matt Salsamendi: Here on Mixer.
Larry Hryb: I want to ask you guys a question though because for your launch, you did something really interesting. It was the first ever interactive fireworks show.
Matt Salsamendi: That was cool.
Larry Hryb: So this is not like fireworks like a screensaver on your PC. This is real pyrotechnics. Tell me, James, tell me about that.
James Boehm : Yeah, so it's an event we called Mixer Works where we launched actual fireworks that you'd see at any big event, controlled by the chats through Interacto. Matt was talking about interactive, how you can influence theme play but we took that model and that interactivity to the real world-
Larry Hryb: You brought it into real life.
James Boehm : With real fireworks. Not with just sparklers but huge, huge fireworks. People spent their sparks, they filled up to a certain cap, and then we launched off the fireworks.
Matt Salsamendi: Yeah, I think something over like four million sparks were spent during that event, which was like absolutely crazy.
Larry Hryb: Where do you guys set them off?
Matt Salsamendi: It was in the desert near LA.
Larry Hryb: Oh, like the Mojave?
Matt Salsamendi: I think so.
Larry Hryb: That's where we did Zero Hour for the Xbox 360.
James Boehm : That's cool. Maybe, I don't know.
Larry Hryb: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: You might have found like an old HDMI cable or something.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I could've. Who knows?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm sure because of all the attention that Mixer is getting right now, there's probably people thinking, "Hey, I would love to start but I don't know how to start streaming. I've never done it before."
Larry Hryb: Everybody is streaming, I'm too late to the game. What do I do?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, what would you advise for just getting started?
Matt Salsamendi: That's one of the great things about Mixer, is just the ease of getting started. We're actually integrating into the Xbox One, through the guide. You just open your guide, go down to the broadcasting tab, and you just click start broadcasting.
Larry Hryb: It's that easy.
Matt Salsamendi: It's that easy to get started. You can setup some settings from there and then go live, and you're already live on Mixer. It's incredibly easy to get started on the Xbox One, and also if you're on PC, you can press Windows G which opens the game bar. That's also the ability to get started with just a few clicks.
Larry Hryb: Just a half a billion people have Windows 10, no big deal, so.
Jeff Rubenstein: For those who maybe aren't ready to create yet but want to know, what are some interesting channels to view?
Larry Hryb: Besides my Weather Channel.
Matt Salsamendi: That's where you start.
Larry Hryb: That's where you start, right.
Matt Salsamendi: That's where you start.
Jeff Rubenstein: Is there any new and exciting stuff or interesting things you've been seeing besides weather?
Larry Hryb: Auctioneer. [crosstalk 00:42:49]
Matt Salsamendi: Yeah, where you should actually start is our new Mixer channel one stream.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Matt Salsamendi: We announced that yesterday along with all the other awesome changes. The idea is that we're curating tons of awesome content across the platform, and providing one stream for new users, new community member to go and hang out and understand kind of who we are, what we're about, and hopefully find some cool content in the process.
Larry Hryb: I want to also be very clear is that when you're on Mixer, you talked about community at the beginning of the interview, and never more have I felt that. When I start streaming, and James, you've dropped into my chat, Matt, you've been in there, I don't know how you guys find out. I'm sure you have some tools that say, "Hey these people are broadcasting, and you just kind of go through." But it's great because you start connecting with people. Certainly, I work with you guys and a lot of your team, which are great, but I've also met a lot of other people that normally wouldn't discover what we're doing. You've got the discoverability, first of all it's the ease on the Xbox 360. One thing I wanted to bring up, it's like don't worry about it if you don't have an account on Mixer. If you have an Xbox Live account, when you go through the console, James, right? It handles that on the backend.
James Boehm : Yep, that's absolutely right.
Larry Hryb: You just go click, click, click, done.
James Boehm : Does it for you.
Larry Hryb: It does it for you and then obviously the same thing with Windows 10. You guys must have seen an incredible uptick in traffic. We talked about the auctioneer and just seeing different things that the-
James Boehm : It's been really cool.
Larry Hryb: Tell us what else you've got up your sleeve. You talked about some new mobile apps and things like that, right?
James Boehm : We launched a very exciting new mobile app called Mixer Create. The idea is it allows you to stream from your phone. It's in a beta on both iOS and Android. For iOS it's a closed beta with partners and staff, but for Android, anybody can actually go download it today and give us feedback. We're excited to get both of those rolling out wider. The cool thing about them in particular is the fact that you still have that same sub-second latency as you do across all of our other platforms.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
James Boehm : So if you're used to streaming on Windows 10 with sub-second latency interacting with your chat-
Larry Hryb: You now have it in your pocket.
James Boehm : You get the same thing in your pocket.
Larry Hryb: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: We'll link out to that.
Larry Hryb: We'll link out to that? The other thing that's exciting, you guys, is I'm terribly jealous because I love what you guys do but now you have a world class studio in the heart of Manhattan at the Flagship Microsoft Store on 5th Avenue, which I've been to, into that studio. It's unbelievable. You guys have been there, right?
Matt Salsamendi: Yeah, I have.
Larry Hryb: It's unbelievable.
Matt Salsamendi: It's very nice.
Larry Hryb: Tell us a little bit about that.
Matt Salsamendi: Yeah, so like you said, out of New York, out of the Flagship Microsoft Store there, we have our very own Mixer studio where we've been broadcasting eSports tournaments to just a ton of different content out there. We've had a bunch of our Mixer partners that are in the, I guess, the tri-cities area up there.
Larry Hryb: Tri-state.
Matt Salsamendi: Or tri-state, yeah. I'm not from there.
Larry Hryb: That's okay. Jeff and I are.
Matt Salsamendi: I've heard that term. We've had partners in that area go up there and get to actually broadcast out of there. Actually today we're launching Paladins Tournament.
Larry Hryb: Oh yeah.
Matt Salsamendi: We've got like six or seven of our partners up there right now recording out of that studio. It's really cool for our partners to get to leverage that and broadcast out of that studio.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I always love going back east and going home. I'm so excited to go back there and do that. Last week, I don't know if you guys, I'm sure you guys knew this, we did This Week on Xbox. We did a live version from the studio here. Jeff, I think we need to take that on the road. Will you go with me?
Jeff Rubenstein: I would love to do that.
Larry Hryb: I'd love to have you guys go with me too but it's so great to see. Mixer is everywhere. I mean look, the company you started, when did you start, 2014?
Matt Salsamendi: It was late 2014 that we started working on the project.
Larry Hryb: Right and then here we are a couple years later, three years later, and you have the CEO of Microsoft tweeting about your stuff. I saw Satya tweeted that the other day. Not bad gentlemen, not bad. It speaks to the incredible passion that you have for this and the technology and the roadmap. Can you give us a little hint about where we're gonna go from here?
Matt Salsamendi: I think the exciting thing with the new Mixer name is it allows us to bring the platform to more places, right?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Matt Salsamendi: One of the important things is we're streaming E3 from Mixer, which is gonna be crazy.
Larry Hryb: No, no, no, you're not doing E3. You're doing it in 4k.
Matt Salsamendi: We're doing it in 4k. You know it.
Larry Hryb: Okay, that's big.
Matt Salsamendi: Yeah, so it's gonna be crazy. We're really excited for that and the technology that we're building around that event is ultimately going to help all the broadcasters on the platform expand their reach, expand their audience to more places. That's really going to be our focus.
Larry Hryb: I just want to apologize on behalf of everyone that if you do see me in 4k, I apologize. Okay, it's gonna be ... It's really exciting to see what we're going to do with year at E3 and you're going to be able to see some great stuff. You have an Xbox One S, you'll be able to see it in beautiful, and of course you need the TV and the whole Magilla.
Jeff Rubenstein: The TV with the thing and the screen.
Larry Hryb: The screen and the HDMI. I don't know. You gotta have all that stuff and seriously, if you have 4k at home you are gonna just love it. It's gonna be phenomenal and that's addition ... Are you guys doing sub-second streaming on 4k?
Matt Salsamendi: That's the goal so we're trying to get as many people on the sub-second pipeline as possible.
Larry Hryb: My God that's a lot of bits.
Matt Salsamendi: It's pretty crazy. We want it to be stable obviously for people, and it's a huge event, so we're working hard to optimize across a variety of different paths. The goal is to deliver as much of it as possible in less than one second of latency so people can hear all of our cool announcements right as they happen.
Larry Hryb: Great. Real time style. All right. Tell me, anything else you want to go over? Because you guys have a busy day ahead of you.
James Boehm : You know, Jeff you were talking about finding content earlier.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, oh right.
James Boehm : There's one thing we didn't mention that we're launching a tab on the Xbox dashboard through Mixer to showcase some of the very best content on the platform.
Larry Hryb: When you sign into your console, you go home, then you'll see a couple-
Jeff Rubenstein: Hit the bumpers there.
Larry Hryb: You hit the little bumpers at the top and you'll see some different tabs. Community, there's gonna be one there called Mixer and people are gonna find what under there, James?
James Boehm : Like I was saying, just featured content. The best content-
Larry Hryb: Auctioneers?
James Boehm : Maybe. It's not unlikely, well probably unlikely but it's a possibility.
Jeff Rubenstein: James, just be prepared for him to say he wants a permanent spot.
James Boehm : Yeah, he wants a permanent spot.
Larry Hryb: I'm not asking for my Weather Channel. I've already got a permanent spot with This Week, but if you're gonna give it to me ... You can actually go in there. I was showing it off on the stream. You can go in there and look and say, "Hey, here are the popular games right now." You can just click on Destiny and all of the sudden, here's everybody streaming Destiny and what's going on. There's just tremendous excitement in this space and it's exciting to see that with Mixer now available to millions of people worldwide now, that anybody can do this. I ask you, listener, why are you listening to this show? Why aren't you streaming?
Jeff Rubenstein: Why aren't we streaming this show on Mixer?
Larry Hryb: I don't have an answer for that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. Well you did the first live this week on-
Larry Hryb: I did This Week on Xbox.
Jeff Rubenstein: We talked about, so-
Larry Hryb: We want to bring a podcast to Mixer. We just haven't figured out the right way to do it.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's too fast for us.
Larry Hryb: No, we can figure it out. We got faces for radio, we'll leave it at that. All right gentlemen, well thank you guys.
Matt Salsamendi: Thank you.
Larry Hryb: Matt, James, it's always good to have you in here. Looking forward to seeing what you guys have cooking up, and as you heard straight from these guys, tune in E3, Xbox E3 in glorious 4k. So go out and get that TV. Go out and get that Xbox One S. Gentlemen, we'll talk to you next time.
Matt Salsamendi: All righty.
James Boehm : Thanks so much Larry.
Matt Salsamendi: Thanks Larry.
Larry Hryb: Thank you Matt and James. It's always good to have those guys in the studio.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's good to have them on the team. It's nice having that stuff in here. I'm more motivated to stream then. We really got to do this co-streaming Overwatch. We need to do this. I'm very motivated.
Larry Hryb: What you don't like my Weather Channel?
Jeff Rubenstein: I think that could be a subchannel under the Major Nelson streaming umbrella mega corp.
Larry Hryb: It was so bizarre.
Jeff Rubenstein: There was people watching it though.
Larry Hryb: There was people watching, I just don't know what was going on, but anyway-
Jeff Rubenstein: That was a strong line of thunderstorms. People like to watch that. That could lead to tornadic activity.
Larry Hryb: Now here's the deal, see now you appreciate it because you did weather. I think I told you the story when I was in college, like when I was a freshmen year in college my dad's like, "What are you gonna major in, in university?" He says, "Weather." I said, "What Dad?" He's like, "There's always gonna be weather so there will always need to be weathermen." Or weather women.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's some truth to that. The thing is most people, I mean I've done this. I was on the track to become a weatherman. So everyone, they go through it, they don't know what they're doing. You just look, whatever the AccuWeather, whatever sort of subscription service we had tells you. Then once you get the job and you're already on TV and have been doing it for a while, that's when you go back and it's like through Mississippi State or something. Everyone gets a degree in meteorology well after they've been a weather person. When you're watching TV, they'll have that seal-
Larry Hryb: Do you have your degree?
Jeff Rubenstein: No, I didn't do it because I got out. You know what I need?
Larry Hryb: The AMS seal?
Jeff Rubenstein: The AMS seal. You get that after you're already on TV.
Larry Hryb: How hard is it to get that?
Jeff Rubenstein: There is some studying involved.
Larry Hryb: I'm sure there is.
Jeff Rubenstein: You learn about the different clouds and vortices and this-
Larry Hryb: Cumulus.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's the fluffy one, yes Larry. I found myself, and I was like 22, doing weather. "Hurricanes are coming in."
Larry Hryb: They're not stopping.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm like, at this point I'm just going to read ... Yeah, I'm like, "I am not trained to forecast this. Here's what the experts are saying."
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Here's what it's going to say on the crawl tonight.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I was like, "Please don't, just please don't hit us." I was not gonna stand out there like they do, you know?
Larry Hryb: Oh, no.
Jeff Rubenstein: You can hit by a lawn chair or something flying through the air.
Larry Hryb: Getting blown away.
Jeff Rubenstein: No.
Larry Hryb: You can get struck by lightening.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's a lot of things that can happen.
Larry Hryb: It's deadly.
Jeff Rubenstein: You stay inside. I boarded up the windows and I stayed inside.
Larry Hryb: In front of your green screen.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, we're gonna wrap up the show here because I know you got to get going. I've got to get going. I've got to do-
Jeff Rubenstein: We have a nice long weekend. I got a lot of catching up to do. I've got to start playing [crosstalk 00:52:34]
Larry Hryb: In the US, in the United States it is Memorial Day Weekend.
Jeff Rubenstein: It is.
Larry Hryb: Which is a big, which is kind of the unofficial official start of summer.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, we went straight from winter into summer here in Seattle.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, everywhere else it was more of a gradual ascension in the temperature. For us it was like-
Jeff Rubenstein: It was 40 degrees last week and it's 80 degrees this week. Why not?
Larry Hryb: Seattle, why you do this? So we're gonna be playing this weekend. Maybe we'll stream this weekend. Do you have any gadgets you want to talk about? We talked about the new Surface Pro coming out.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm hoping to get ahold of one of those. It comes out mid June. I'm going to get ahold of both the Pro and the laptop and I'll be happy to talk to you about them. I'm excited.
Larry Hryb: I think I may get the laptop next week.
Jeff Rubenstein: Why do you get it first? This is literally my job.
Larry Hryb: I don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: And they give it to you.
Larry Hryb: They reached out to me and I told them I'm going-
Jeff Rubenstein: Who's they? Let's talk off camera.
Larry Hryb: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: I want one.
Larry Hryb: Anyway, so-
Jeff Rubenstein: I have gadget lust.
Larry Hryb: We've got that coming in. We've got a few other things to do but next week don't think they'll be a show because I actually have to travel back east. I'm going to my niece's high school graduation. I'll be in Providence.
Jeff Rubenstein: The week after that we're gonna be down to E3 already.
Larry Hryb: The week after that we're going to E3 so it's-
Jeff Rubenstein: Is this the last show before E3?
Larry Hryb: This may be the last show because we're doing some rehearsals for some things. I can't really talk about much.
Jeff Rubenstein: I know you can't.
Larry Hryb: Neither can you.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're very well disciplined this year. I've seen no rumor posts saying Larry hints at this or that. That's good. I don't know, maybe we can find some time, maybe in the hotel. Maybe a pre-E3 stream.
Larry Hryb: Or even a post one. I can bring my little Mevo and we can do something. Maybe we can go up to do something right to Beam or Mixer.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, that would be great. Let's do that.
Larry Hryb: Okay, we'll do something. You guys want to see us from Mixer, let me know. Promise, no weather. Maybe a little.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah a little bit. We can't help ourselves.
Larry Hryb: Just to keep it local.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've got to keep my mom happy. Believe me, she was like, "Why aren't you a weatherman?" She liked my friend who is a weatherman.
Larry Hryb: You have a friend that-
Jeff Rubenstein: She's like, "Why can't you be more like Nick?"
Larry Hryb: So she gave up on you ever being a doctor?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, very quickly. I let her down.
Larry Hryb: That ship sailed. You could've been selling hot dogs like I was.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's true. I was bagging groceries where shopping is a pleasure.
Larry Hryb: Publix?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah. That's my first job.
Larry Hryb: Which, by the way, I take it on good authority you claim they have the best sandwiches.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah, Publix subs. We were down visiting my sister a couple weeks ago.
Larry Hryb: What's the secret?
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just Boar's Head meat.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, which [inaudible 00:54:55]
Jeff Rubenstein: It's just really good. You make it exactly how you want it. I love it. I love it.
Larry Hryb: Publix. There's no Publix out here.
Jeff Rubenstein: We're as far from Publix as you can get in the continental US.
Larry Hryb: You know who eats at Publix? A Florida man.
Jeff Rubenstein: All of them do.
Larry Hryb: All of them do.
Jeff Rubenstein: They're just chugging sweet tea.
Larry Hryb: All right gentlemen and ladies, and everyone who's listening in between, I want to thank you for finding the time to download the show.
Jeff Rubenstein: For making it this far.
Larry Hryb: For making it this far and God bless you. We are going to go away and do E3, so we will talk to you maybe before, maybe after, I don't know. If you follow me on Twitter @majornelson, and Instagram. I apologize in advance because I will be chatting during E3. Jeffrey, you can find him at ...
Jeff Rubenstein: @jeffrubenstein.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, that's how you do it. All right gang, we'll see you. If we don't see you before, we'll see you at E3. Thanks for listening and have fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: See you in June.