722: Xbox Series X|S RDNA 2 and Game Bar

Larry:
Hi, it's Larry here of Xbox Live's major announcement. We are less than two weeks before Xbox Series X and S launches. And that means it's time for another podcast. Well not every week we do a podcast, here we go. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff:
There we are. Can you imagine, next time we talk it's going to be a week to launch. Which is wow.

Larry:
Yeah, wow.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Larry:
Wow.

Jeff:
It's a wow that I look like I haven't slept in a while, because ...

Larry:
That's fact.

Jeff:
That's accurate.

Larry:
In fact I must tell you, to be perfectly honest, we're recording the show and I texted Jeff like, "Hey, we're going to do the show today, right?" And he's like, "Yeah, but I'm still in my pajamas."

Jeff:
This is 10 minutes ago.

Larry:
Do it in pajamas, I don't care.

Jeff:
Arguably, I still feel like I'm in my pajamas. This is my first cup of coffee at noon.

Larry:
We're getting ready for launch. It's good to see you, by the way, I haven't seen you all week. I haven't seen you at all, we haven't connected at all, because ...

Jeff:
I did hear you. You were on, what's it called, Behind The Lights, or Turn The Lights Off podcast.

Larry:
Keeping the Lights On, Turn the Lights Off.

Jeff:
Keeping the Lights On, thank you.

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
I think I was thinking Nelly Furtado or something. Turn off the lights.

Larry:
I love going on that show. Rooster Teeth has been friends with Xbox for so long. And being able to talk with those guys and have a little bit of fun with them, Gus and Jack, I love those guys. Go watch the show if you can, because it was just a ton of fun.

Jeff:
They're not only really nice guys, but really authentic Xbox fans. Whenever we've done anything in Austin they're like, "Can we come by?" I'm like, "Yeah, of course you can come by." Remember we launched Titan Fall out there back in 2014.

Larry:
Do you want me to say stand by for Titan Fall? You know I have all those clips, they're dry, the originals. They sent them to me. I should play them sometime.

Jeff:
The clips of what?

Larry:
Stand by for Titan Fall.

Jeff:
Oh yeah.

Larry:
The voiceover. They're so good.

Jeff:
I still remember the first time we ever played that. I had just started here back in 2014. We had launched, and then there was just a day, it was like we need everyone to come to this room to play the first build of Titan Fall or whatever it was.

Larry:
Right. Or the first build that we had, yeah.

Jeff:
Yeah, that was ready for a bunch of people. And we had a bunch of Xbox Ones networked together in a room. And we were just giggling and just having the best ... And we were like, this is going to be a hit. And it was.

Larry:
It still holds up. It still holds up, that game, Titan Fall.

Jeff:
Not only that, but we're still playing the DNA of it, which is all over Apex Legends. The season seven trailer came out this week, and they're adding in vehicles. I feel like the current mode, actually, the Halloween mode, when you're a wraith ... Not wraith, but if you get killed you turn into an undead thingy, and you can melee kill, which is actually super fun.

Larry:
You can also wall run.

Jeff:
You can wall run. And I'm like, that's another thing from Titan Fall. They were really one of the first to do that. [crosstalk 00:03:02]

Larry:
Should we call it right now on the show? I'll have to get Vince on the show and ask him. Are we just one or two, three, maybe four releases away from getting an actual Titan Fall, titan in the game? Like boom.

Jeff:
I want to know. Imagine if that was a mode where if for one season there was a character that was their alt or something like that. That would ...

Larry:
Be bananas.

Jeff:
I want it, Vince. I want it, Vince. That would be crazy. The new character horizon looks interesting. We still love that game. We still get so much [crosstalk 00:03:31] from it.

Larry:
We're still getting wins on it, right?

Jeff:
Yeah. I'm up to I want to say 30 wins this season, so that's not bad. [crosstalk 00:03:41]

Larry:
No, go ahead, I was just looking ...

Jeff:
That was true of us. Remember we had on Friday night we played.

Larry:
That's right.

Jeff:
I think we had a game where I was fist pumping. I was so jazzed up, because at the end it was me versus two adds. They were better than us.

Larry:
You cleaned up.

Jeff:
It was a team. And I didn't expect it.

Larry:
They had the high ground, and they did not win.

Jeff:
I was so happy about that. That kept me going for two days straight that we got that win. [crosstalk 00:04:17]

Larry:
We're looking at, as I said at the top of the show, we're less than two weeks away from the launch of Xbox Series X and S. We got a lot of news. We'll talk about Gamebar later in the show hopefully. Jason Ronalds is going to come by to talk about RDNA2. It's always great to have Jason on the show.

Larry:
By the way, here's a little ... He's got a good connection this time.

Jeff:
Oh, that's good. Well he was on Gamertag Radio this week. He was talking to Paris Lilly. Big fan of Paris and the work that he does, and the connection was great on that. And they went deep into the tech as well. I just love hearing ...

Jeff:
Here's the thing. This stuff is complicated, but Jason makes it palatable.

Larry:
Approachable, understandable.

Jeff:
Approachable for people like us, who maybe not so technically adept.

Larry:
But all that matters is, the games look great. So anyway, we'll have those guys coming up later in the show. By the way, this is one of the rare times when you and I I think are playing the same thing, aren't we?

Jeff:
I think we are. That appears to be the Gherkin and the Shard there behind you in London. They're not next to each other in real life, but we'll forgive them. We're playing Watchdogs Legion.

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
So what do you think, Larry?

Larry:
I'm having a great time with it.

Jeff:
Do you like the accents in that game?

Larry:
Accents are one thing. But I'm sorry, I must cop to something, Jeffrey. I'm a stupid American, I can't get used to driving on the other side of the road this game. And I've given up. I'm just like, forget it, I'm on this side of the road.

Jeff:
Forget it, I'm just going. Tell me, who is your favorite character? In this game you can, in Watchdogs One you were Aidan Pierce, Watchdogs Two, apologies I can't remember his name, and I love that game. But in Watchdogs Legion you can choose to be anybody. Like literally you see someone on the street, you hold down the left bumper, you sort of scan them, you see who they are, what abilities they have.

Jeff:
And then you can say, I want to recruit them. And they might have a beef with Albion, who is the private military contractor that's taken over London. And if you help them out, they will join your cause, join DefSec.

Jeff:
And so you're going through, sometimes like, that person looks weird, I want to recruit them. So who have you recruited that you've said, this is my guy or gal?

Larry:
Well I must tell you something, a couple things. I started off with this female who has a submachine gun and I think she gets bonus XP when she's hacking. But I'm so incredibly jealous. Because you said something to me when we were talking the other day, and I've been scanning everybody to find somebody similar.

Larry:
You said you found somebody who's like a James Bond-esque character, right?

Jeff:
Yes. Yes, he's a spy. He's always talking about MI5 and everything. And he can summon [crosstalk 00:07:13]. Go on.

Larry:
No, go ahead. Because I tell you what I did.

Jeff:
Go on, please, tell me.

Larry:
No, go ahead and tell me what he summoned, because I want to tell you what my experience was.

Jeff:
He could summon what is effectively an Aston Martin, a classic Connery-era James Bond. He has essentially what is a silenced Walther PP pistol.

Larry:
PPK.

Jeff:
PPK, thank you. And then he's got a watch. If it hits his watch he can jam everybody's weapon. And he's just walking around in a tuxedo. And so whenever I have to infiltrate, the thing that I love about the game is you can usually have a robot spider go in or a drone go in. And let the machine do the hard work, the dangerous stuff.

Jeff:
But sometimes you need to send someone in and they need to get dangerous. That's when I call my spy. So tell me what you did.

Larry:
The funniest thing is, you told me about it, and I was insanely jealous, like I have to find this person, I don't care. So I've been scanning everybody. And finally I was getting chase or something and I scanned somebody. And they said they worked for MI6. And I turned around and I chased them, and I couldn't find them again.

Larry:
So it was like this brief moment and now I can't find them. So I'm just so bummed.

Jeff:
All right. So pro tip, if you see somebody you like, you can, when you're holding down left bumper, if you hit right bumper and you hold it down for a sec, it will add them to your queue. And it sort of files them away. And then if you look into your crew tab when you hit the view button, you can go back through and go okay, I can then activate-

Larry:
Find them and do their quest.

Jeff:
The command to find them and talk to them and figure them out. There is, if you want to guarantee to get a spy, there are certain things that are red on the map. In each neighborhood in London there's three to four. And there's one of the neighborhoods that if you do all of those things it activates another mission. And if you do that, you get the spy.

Larry:
Okay.

Jeff:
And so that way you'll guarantee, it's not that hard to do.

Larry:
I need to do it. Is that what you did, or did you get it from somebody else?

Jeff:
That's how I got it. I did not randomly encounter them. So now I know [inaudible 00:09:17] those MI6 is. I did find a human statue, a busker, somebody that holds still, and then you ... And their special ability is if they're being chased by the cops, they can just become a statue, and everyone just walks by them and doesn't know that they're there.

Jeff:
So the pro tip for me for this game is, there's these big drones, construction drones that are kind of like you'd see a helicopter drop something in, but it's in drone form. If you have a construction worker, they summon that anywhere. And there's a lot of times it's like, I need to get up on the roof, how do I get up on the roof? Summon that drone, hop on.

Larry:
Up you go.

Jeff:
I'm riding through London on the back of a drone.

Larry:
That's what I did.

Jeff:
And that, and then I throw my spider bot in there to go [crosstalk 00:10:03] things. I actually have not played that far into the campaign. I'm taking over every neighborhood. I think I have only two of the eight or nine districts left to take over. To me that's fun, I love London. I'm driving around, there's places that I know.

Jeff:
There's actually in Piccadilly Circus, there's a sporting goods story called Lillywhites. And they have really good prices on soccer kits. And I'm an Arsenal fan.

Larry:
Yes you are.

Jeff:
And I love soccer. And so usually when I go there I'll pick up the latest one, or I'll bring one back for friends or family or om like that. And I wanted to dress one of my characters in soccer regalia. They have essentially what very much looks like an Arsenal kit, very much looks like a West Ham kit in there, but obviously they're not licenses.

Jeff:
So I wonder if in Piccadilly there's a sporting goods story on that corner. There is. It's not Lillywhites, but exactly where it's supposed to be, there's a sporting goods store. I wen there, I bought the kits, and I thought that was just so cool.

Larry:
Well it's funny, I was doing the same thing going to our favorite places in London. And one of the missions, the tip is that you can do fast travel through obviously the Tube station, the subways.

Jeff:
Yeah, which is really cool.

Larry:
And one of them I was like, okay, I see the point of interest I have to go to over here. So I fast traveled to, I believe it was the Oxford Circus station. Which is right in front of where the Microsoft store is. And I came up and went, there it is. It's not in the game, but the building is, and it looks exactly the same. So I was like, oh yeah, I know. And I know exactly where this place is, I go down here to this grocery store.

Larry:
Anyway, it was a lot of fun to do that. So it's good to be back in London, even though it's virtually.

Jeff:
I know. I can't believe I was there this year, in January. It seems like a decade ago.

Larry:
Was it just January?

Jeff:
Yeah, it was January. I was there for some meetings, and we were there last November for-

Larry:
Fanfest.

Jeff:
XO19. Can you believe that that was just under a year ago? I mean it's unbelievable.

Larry:
I know.

Jeff:
That was when we were first hearing about Yakuza coming to Xbox Game Pass. And here we are. I played three Yakuza games, and I'm getting ready for a dragon. So as slow and yet as fast as the year has gone by, at least in games I've been just incredibly productive.

Larry:
2020's been quite the year, hasn't it? I don't know, let's take a look here, I'm going to bring up my console. Watchdogs, we've got Apex. You're putting me on the spot here.

Jeff:
Here, I'll talk about one while you look.

Larry:
No, I've got Squadrons. Sea of Thieves, Forts of ... Oh, Shotgun Farmers.

Jeff:
[inaudible 00:12:38]

Larry:
By the way, I have to tell you, I sent a note to Phil Spencer. I'm like, "Hey Phil, we should play Shotgun Farmers." And he's like, "Okay." So I haven't put that together yet, hopefully I'll do that over the next few days.

Jeff:
That would be great.

Larry:
Will you join us?

Jeff:
Absolutely. We just had a blast playing that game.

Larry:
Yeah. So to your point of why you just got out of your pajamas 10 minutes ago, is we're busy, we've got a lot to do.

Jeff:
Yes.

Larry:
Ironically, we haven't had a lot of time to play games. So I don't know, should we talk to Jason and talk about Gamebar now? Or do you want to do the news? How do you want to do this show. Because we like to do it at different times.

Jeff:
We teed them up, I think a lot of people probably want to see Jason, they probably want to learn about the Gamebar. We can do that. We'll come back, I do want to talk about [Teschers 00:13:19] Effect Connected. And we have some great news, so we'll do that too.

Larry:
All right, let's go right into it then. We've got less than two weeks to go before Xbox series X and S launch, so I figured why not, one more time, let's bring him in. Jason Ronalds, Jason, good to see you.

Jason Ronalds:
Good to see you, Larry. Excited to be back.

Larry:
Yeah, I got to tell you, like I said just a moment ago, we're just under two weeks away from this incredible journey that the entire team has been on for bringing Xbox Series X and S to the market. So I wanted to get you on one final time to talk about maybe some things that people aren't aware of, and just reiterate some of the news and talk about some of the recent news that we've had, and remind people about what they're getting into in a couple of weeks when they get their consoles.

Larry:
So let's talk about RDNA2. Because there's been a little bit of news about that this week, and I want you to explain that to folks what it is, and how we use it on the Xbox series.

Jason Ronalds:
That's a great question. Earlier this week AMD announced the 6000 series of discrete PC cards, with full support for RDNA2. And we're really excited to partner with AMD. And RDNA two is really at the heart of the Xbox Series X and Series S.

Jason Ronalds:
And the Xbox Series X and Series S are the only next-gen consoles that have full hardware support for the full set of RDNA2 capabilities. RDNA2 delivers a high level of efficiency and a new level of performance. But it also includes brand new features like hardware-accelerated direct X retracing, variable rate shading, mesh shaders, and sampler feedback.

Jason Ronalds:
So this is really the foundation of the technology platform that we're going to be building games on for the next seven to 10 years.

Larry:
Yeah, and I want to point out, that's important because, you talk about how the consoles are the only ones that have the full stack. Because maybe sometimes you may hear they're going to use one or two features, but all of the features in this technology we have in the console. So that, I don't want to say future-proof, because that's always dangerous, but it's really good looking forward, isn't it?

Jason Ronalds:
Exactly. And as a game developer what's really exciting is you get all the exact same features of Direct X 12 Ultimate on console, on PC as well. So you have one common set of capabilities. So as you develop your game, and if you choose to ship it on PC or console, you're guaranteed to have all of those same features. And it just makes the development process that much easier.

Larry:
Another thing I want to point out is that this is the start of these generations, there's always a little bit, and this isn't a negative, but it's growing pains as we learn about the technology, as developers learn about the technology. So the games as we progress through the next coming months are just going to get better and better and look better and perform better, right?

Jason Ronalds:
Absolutely. If you look at any console generation, the games that ship at the beginning of the generation versus the end of the generation, ti really comes down to developers really understanding how to take full advantage of the hardware as well as the software capabilities that we offer.

Jason Ronalds:
We're really incredibly proud and excited by what we're already seeing from some of the launch titles. But exactly your point, as we look at year two, year three, year four, developers are just going to get that much better at taking full advantage of all of these new capabilities. And really delivering those transformative gaming experiences.

Larry:
And just talking about the games that have been developed first, second, third year after launch, let's go back and talk about backwards compatibility. Because we've been talking about that a lot recently, and it's something that's really important to gamers. Is our backwards compatibility program is, I would argue, and I'm going to say this, second to none. You and I know that team and they do extraordinary work over there, but let's talk about some of the advantages with Xbox Series X and S for the backwards compatibility program.

Jason Ronalds:
Absolutely. And I think you hit it right on the head. We started this journey in 2015 on the Xbox One, so it's really an area that we've invested very heavily in. And we've developed new ways to preserve and enhance your favorite games.

Jason Ronalds:
And with the Xbox Series X and Series S, we really started from day one wanting to ensure compatibility across generations. And that influenced the design of the hardware, as well as the software. And the backwards compatibility team has spent hundreds of thousands of hours testing all of the games on the Xbox Series X and Series S.

Jason Ronalds:
And that means on day one, all of the games that run on Xbox One will be available for you, with the exception of a handful of connect-only titles. And not only will those games play, but they're going to play better than you've ever seen them before. Because we run them with the full power of the CPU, the GPU, the memory and the very clear advantages in the next-generation storage architecture we have. So all your games will just play that much better on Series X and Series S.

Larry:
And I also want to point out, you talked a little bit about all the hardware that we can do here, and obviously it's much more powerful than the past. But we're also adding auto HDR to some of the titles, which is something that people ... How do you put something there that wasn't there five or 10 or 15 years ago? That's some black magic, right?

Jason Ronalds:
Yeah. It's a really cool technique that was actually incubated in the Xbox advanced technology group, where we can actually create an HDR reconstruction based on the standard SDR image that you have. And it's through a combination of machine learning, and just really applying that contrast and those higher-level knits in the areas of the screen that really can benefit from them, while not changing the overall artistic intent of the game.

Jason Ronalds:
And to your point, if you go back and play a game like Geometry Wars, or even something from the original Xbox like Fusion Frenzy, these games look so much better than you've ever seen them before. And it's done on the platform level itself, so there's no work by developers. So it just works across the entire catalog. And it's really exciting to see these games looking and playing better than they've ever seen before.

Larry:
Yeah, it's funny you say that. Because as I was going through some of the games I've played in the past, we've all played, in years past for gamers that have been around for a while, games that like, "Oh, this is a re-release of a game." And you kind of go back and you're like, this may not look as good as I remember. Your mind's eye does some nice favors for you.

Larry:
But with some of the backwards compatibility technology that we have, it actually can look better than what you remember in some regards, right?

Jason Ronalds:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Larry:
That's also really exciting. I also want to point out that this isn't like we just take all the titles and throw them in there, and you have to figure out for yourself, like it may work or it may not work. We actually test it. And I think we've tested over 50,000 hours, is what I'm being told, that we've done to make sure that everybody has a great experience with the titles, right?

Jason Ronalds:
It's actually 500,000 hours.

Larry:
Oh 500,000. Apparently I'm missing a comma, sorry.

Jason Ronalds:
Exactly. And that's the thing, is it's a tremendous amount of work, but it's really about our commitment to compatibility. And not only that, but for me there's games that I've played on the Xbox Series X and S that I haven't played in five or six years. And just being able to boot the title, like game save is instantly available to me. And I'm able to pick up right where I would say from before.

Jason Ronalds:
That's the experience that I want as a gamer, and we want gamers across the Xbox ecosystem to have that experience.

Larry:
Yeah, you talked about the game saves, and that's really important. Because I want to say it was 2006 or '07, I don't remember when it was that we brought game saves to the cloud on Xbox 360. And since then you've never had to worry about anything. I can go back to a game that I played in 2008 and there's my game save. It kind of is this moment in time. And you don't have to sync anything, you don't have to choose do I want to do this, it just kind of happens. It's really extraordinary to think about that happening.

Larry:
And I also want to point out, according to what we have here, that all Xbox One games are going to be available as backwards compatibility. Is that correct?

Jason Ronalds:
Exactly. We've complete testing of the entire catalog of games that run on Xbox One, and all of those games will run on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. There's a handful of connect-only titles that will not work. But even titles that support connect and controller, those titles will also work with the Xbox Series X and S.

Jason Ronalds:
As well as all your accessories as well. So if you have a fight stick, a flight stick, a guitar, all of those accessories move forward with you, just like your game library and just like your gaming legacy.

Larry:
And that's really important. You talked about accessories moving forward. Because certainly when you get the console, here's my new controller, you can see the little share button in the middle. But it also works with my existing controller, like my elite series two. And I even tweeted this out last week and you and I were talking about this, it works with your infrared, the Xbox Media Remote.

Larry:
So what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure that the investment you've made in your Xbox collection of accessories and so forth, it can go with you. And that's really important, isn't it?

Jason Ronalds:
Exactly. We know people go out, and they say spend a fair amount of money on an advanced steering wheel, or a fight stick or a flight stick. Or people invest hours and hours into their favorite franchises.

Jason Ronalds:
Like one of the things that I really enjoyed was when you tweeted out your Fallout save. I think you were at level 57, and I think about all of the hours that you invested to get your character there. Why should that go away? You shouldn't have to start over from scratch. If you want to go back to that franchise, you should be able to do it, and just be able to go right back to where you were.

Larry:
Yeah. Like I say, there's no reason, we're not going to make you buy new stuff. We're not going to force you into that, we want to use your old stuff. Let's be a little eco-friendly here, right? Let's reuse as much as we can and make sure that it works well.

Larry:
We talked a little bit about RDNA2, and there was some news last week from Gears of War, the Gears team. I was wondering if you could talk about that. Because they've improved their latency across the pipeline, and there were quite some interesting games last week, weren't there?

Jason Ronalds:
Yeah. One of the key focus areas for us in the design and the development of the Xbox Series X and Series S was to really optimize the end-to-end latency pipeline. All the way from the controller to the console, all the way out to your display.

Jason Ronalds:
And the Gears team has done an incredible job partnering with us to really showcase how that can transform the gaming experience. We introduce new technology, like dynamic latency input, where we can basically eliminate the latency between when you press a button or when you move a thumb stick, and when the game actually receives that input.

Jason Ronalds:
We also made it easier for game developers to synchronize input with their display calls. So even within the game engine themselves, they can eliminate any extra input latency. And then between the console and the TV, we've got HDMI 2.1 with things like variable refresh rate, and auto low latency mode.

Jason Ronalds:
And what the ultimately results as a player is the most responsive gaming experience you've ever had. From the millisecond that you press a button or you change the thumb stick, you'll see that reflected on the display. And just playing Gears, even with just the latency improvements, it just is that much of a cleaner experience.

Jason Ronalds:
And then you look at new advanced modes like 120 frames a second support, latency really matters. If you're a competitive player, if you just want that very precise, super responsive experience, the Gears team has done an incredible job bringing all of this together, and showing how it can transform your experience.

Larry:
And I want to point out, a lot of these games are available on Xbox Series X and S, because they're both incredibly powerful machines, right?

Jason Ronalds:
Exactly. All of the latency improvements that the gears team shared last week, they apply to Series X and Series S, because they share the exact same architecture, they share the exact same capabilities. And Gears Five runs at 120 frames a second on Series S as well, just at a reduced rendering resolution. Because we want that most responsive gaming experience for all of our gamers.

Larry:
I've got to tell you, I'm really excited. You and I have been talking about this low latency, and decreasing the latency on the entire stack, I want to say since March, March of this year.

Jason Ronalds:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Larry:
Which seems forever ago for a lot of reasons. But I'm just excited, in less than two weeks people are going to get to finally feel it theirselves. Due to the world events, we've haven't had a chance to have our Fanfest or E3 or any of these other types of large events where people can get hands-on. But now they're finally going to get their hands on the controller and feel what these games feel like. And I think folks are going to be really excited with the fast loading and how it looks, we talked about the RDNA2 and so forth.

Larry:
When we look at the ecosystem, of course we have thank you consoles, Xbox Series X and Series S, there's also an outside of it, last week we updated the Xbox app. And I want to talk a little bit about that, because I know the team worked on that, I tweeted that out and there's been some feedback on that. So I was wondering if you could tell us about the app.

Jason Ronalds:
Yeah. It was a real focus for us of how do we make sure that the Xbox Series X and Series S more naturally integrate into your lifestyle? And we all have mobile devices that we're able to use, and we can set up modern devices with our mobile phones.

Jason Ronalds:
So the Xbox app is where you will actually set up your Series X and Series S console. And when you set up your console, it really establishes a connection with your console. So you're able to do things like remote play, as an example. You can actually stream off of your console to your mobile device, either in your home or outside of your home, on both Android and iOS. You can also browse a catalog of find out what your friends are playing.

Jason Ronalds:
And you can actually download games from the mobile app to your console even if you don't own them, so the game is downloaded, so that when you get home you can either choose to play the game if you already own it, or if it's available via Game Pass. Or if you know you want to purchase a game, the game can be pre-downloaded for you. So that you can just come home, purchase the game, and you're up and running instantly.

Jason Ronalds:
So it's really about removing that friction for the player. Another great example is the sharing functionality is not tied into the Xbox app. [crosstalk 00:28:06]

Larry:
I'm looking at it right here, and it's been so easy to go in, I don't mean to cut you off, but I've got all my captures here. And being able to take them, and you can kind of save them and share them out right to wherever your favorite social platforms is really, really quite easy. So that much I got to tell you I love.

Jason Ronalds:
Yeah. And I think it's just a recognition that we all have cellular devices. Like you said, we're already connected to our social networks. And in some cases, the easiest way to engage with the ecosystem is actually on your mobile device. So we want to make sure that experience is very seamless for our players.

Larry:
It's the beginning of a journey. We had to rebuild a lot of things, because we're on this new generation, we want to make sure that people have the right tools, and make things faster. Jason has been talking for the past 15 minutes about speed, and we want to make sure that you can get to your content as quickly as possible.

Larry:
There's a lot going on, Jason. We are less than two weeks away, as I said at the top of the interview. And I want to point out that I know that your team is still working. They're not ready to take time off. They're getting ready, because once these consoles get into people's hands, it's go time for us, isn't it?

Jason Ronalds:
Yeah. It's a really exciting time for the team. We've been on this journey for over four years at this point. To your point earlier, a lot of us have been using these consoles every single day for at least the last year. And it really has fundamentally changed how I use the product, my gaming habits. And we just really can't wait for players across the world to get access on November 10th.

Jason Ronalds:
And then also to your point with the Xbox app, very similar on the console. Launch day is a very exciting time, we're going to celebrate with fans all around the world. But that's also just the beginning of our journey as well. We've got an incredible list of launch titles, all of your games move forward with you. You're going to continue to see transformative experiences.

Jason Ronalds:
But we're just going to keep growing from there, with new titles, new features, and new capabilities. So it's a really exciting time, and I could be prouder of how the team has come together this year to really deliver a great experience on day one.

Larry:
That is great news, great to hear. I'm so excited we're talking about the RDNA2 and our full implementation on that. The great stuff around the vacuum pack. You updated us on the Xbox app. There's a lot going on. It feels like every couple weeks I'm like, "Hey Jason, let's get you on again."

Larry:
But I'm going to give you a little bit of a break, because we're at launch. So maybe we'll have you on again in a few more months when we've got some more details to share. So Jason, any final words before I let you go?

Jason Ronalds:
Honestly, my biggest thing is, I'm just really excited to get Xbox Series X and Series S in the hands of players all across the world. The team has worked incredibly hard, we are gamers as well as everybody else, and it's really important that we deliver that great experience. So we're just really excited for everybody to experience it on November 10th.

Larry:
All right, PC gamers, you must be really excited, because the Gamebar in Windows 10 just got a pretty good update, and joining me today is Daniel Dobbins. Daniel, good to see you.

Daniel Dobbins:
Hey, thanks for having me today.

Larry:
I'm really excited to talk to you, because you are the PM on the Gamebar. Let me bring up, it actually says it right here on screen, so that makes it official. Tell me a little bit about what that means, and then we're going to go in and talk about the new features that you've just announced.

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah. So I'm the program manager within the PC gaming area in Xbox. So we work on the Gamebar. And I'm responsible for a lot of the decisions about what kinds of features we decide to bring into the Gamebar. So a lot of that comes from the team, we play games, but also from community feedback too.

Larry:
Now we talked about that, because Gamebar launched quite a while ago, but you've been iterating along the way and adding things. And earlier this week you had a blog post up at News.xbox.com that you authored along with Eric Hamilton. Tell us about some of those updates. We have some video to support it as well, so they're pretty exciting.

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah. The first one is a big one. We're calling it the resources widget. So this is something that we've seen, a tool we love to see ourselves, but we also heard a lot of feedback from PC gamers about managing resources to make sure your games are performing well.

Daniel Dobbins:
A lot of people use things like the task manager, but we want to make sure that you can stay in the game without getting distracted or having to Alt Tab to different windows. [crosstalk 00:32:22]

Larry:
And you can kind of see it here, you can see in this clip you're pulling up, right?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah, exactly. So this is the first, at a glance you get to see high, medium or low, with that red, yellow green of, are there apps running that are taking up a bunch of resources on my machine, and maybe I want to close those out so that the game can use those resources instead.

Daniel Dobbins:
So it makes it real easy to identify any problems there and make adjustments. You also have the [crosstalk 00:32:46] that you're seeing there.

Larry:
I want to ask you a question. It's interesting, because for people that have been using Windows and Windows games for a long time, they've had the task manager. So what's the advantage of bringing a mini version of it into the game, or over the game I should say?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah. There's a couple things. One of them is that the task manager is a separate window, and so you do need to Alt Tab back and forth between your game, which takes a little more time, it takes you out of context. And so this lets you do it from right within the Gamebar without leaving your game, which is great.

Daniel Dobbins:
The other thing is that this is really focused on the scenarios you want to use it for while gaming. And so it should have a lot less overhead, and make it easier and quicker to do what you need to do in there while you're playing.

Larry:
All right, that's good stuff. We got a resource manager, what else did you bring us to talk about today?

Daniel Dobbins:
PC gaming is always the cutting edge for new features related to gaming, and DirectX 12 Ultimate is an example of that. So now if you go into gaming settings, we've got a new gaming features section, and you can use that to check out whether your system is configured to leverage all the DirectX 12 ultimate features.

Larry:
And here on the screen you can kind of see that you go through there and it will go in and tell you exactly what you can do. Because we know gamers love to have the latest and the greatest and the best, and they want to run their temperatures low and their frame rates high. And this will really tell you if your hardware, what it can support. So that's actually pretty helpful, isn't it?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah, absolutely.

Larry:
All right, what else? We've got this interesting thing. Because we've been talking about the resource widget, but there's actually even more widgets available, right?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yes. Earlier this year we introduced the SDK in the widget store, so third-party developers can build their own widgets. So right in the homebar there you will see in the menu that we've got a widget store. And you can browse a bunch of different widgets in a growing catalog from third-party partners.

Daniel Dobbins:
So we've got new widgets coming from Gamecaster and Asus today, along with the existing catalog of widgets, that's continuing to grow over time.

Larry:
When you look at those, widgets are really just these little applets, for lack of a better term, that will run with Gamebar. So that again, to your point earlier, you don't have to Alt Tab out. You can bring everything over your experience, and then quickly it dismisses it as opposed to breaking the game experience. So that's really great for gamers, isn't it?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah exactly. Especially for full screen games where Alt Tabbing can cause problems. We want to make it as easy as possible to get things like that done.

Larry:
All right, next step we have, this is actually really good. Let's talk about this one, this is cool. Let me bring it over here, there we go. What do we got here?

Daniel Dobbins:
I mentioned earlier that we listen to community feedback for a lot of these features, and defining our roadmap. So now it's really easy, if you go into Gamebar settings there under the feedback tab, you can click one button and it gets you right into feedback tab to send us any feedback, bug reports, feature requests, that kind of thing, to get right to the feature team that makes the decisions about what we're building next.

Larry:
When you look at this, when you look at the widgets and all the work that you've done on there, Gamebar, people just really seem to love it, and all the different things you can do there, from staying connected to the community, to doing the quick screenshots and so forth. It's got to be really exciting for you guys to see the emphasis on PC gaming again. Because Microsoft has a massive history in it, and we're doing Xbox over here. But Xbox is really, this is the Gamebar. Xbox is Gamebar, Gamebar is Xbox. It's kind of all one.

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah. And it's been exciting to grow that over time, as Microsoft and Xbox has started to focus more and more on PC gaming, to be able to show that we really understand what makes PC gaming unique, and that we want to make sure that we address those needs well too.

Larry:
When you look at this, Daniel, people are looking at this and they're like, "Oh wow, I need to go ..." Gamers tend to be a little bit reticent when they're upgrading their rigs, because sometimes it will break something or whatever have you. How do they get this update, and when can they expect it?

Daniel Dobbins:
The update is starting to roll out October 29th, Thursday. And so we typically light it up for a small amount of users, and we roll that out over about a week. But if you want to look for the update right away, you can just go to the Windows Store and looking for updates, and that will just pull down the update right away.

Larry:
And is this a full system update, or is the Gamebar kind of outside of it? Tell us a little bit about that minutia.

Daniel Dobbins:
It's way easier than a Windows update. So really it's just like an app. It will look like just an app update in the store, it should be really quick, and then get you up and running in no time.

Larry:
That's really cool. Now of course we just went through really quickly, and it was awesome. But if you really want to check it out you want to go to News.xbox.com and Daniel and Eric have written a whole article over there on what we just talked about. But more importantly, download the update, use it, and as Eric said, they now have this feedback mechanism so you can fill out what you want. And I'm sure you guys are taking feature requests and everything else like that, right?

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah, absolutely.

Larry:
Yeah, that's a lot of fun. Well listen, Daniel, I appreciate it, I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys are going to do there. Can I get you on the show again? Because you guys are always updating Gamebar, it feels like I may need to have you on again in a few months.

Daniel Dobbins:
Yeah, absolutely. We'd love to continue talking about all the new stuff we're bringing here, and hear feedback from you too.

Jeff:
Thank you so much to our guests. And if you want to learn more about all of the technical underpinnings of the Xbox Series X and Series S, RDNA2, there is a great blog post on Xbox Wire right now that was written by Andrew Guessen. And first of all I love hearing Andrew Guessen talk about this, stuff, I've gotten to meet him [crosstalk 00:38:12].

Larry:
Oh yeah, he's fantastic, isn't he?

Jeff:
But his title is technical fellow, which I think is a very distinguished thing. But it's like, oh yeah, he's a technical fellow. I think he is very technical. So him and Jason Ronalds- [crosstalk 00:38:25]

Larry:
It's very academic.

Jeff:
Yes, it is. Partnered on the science and the tech behind the Xbox Series X and S, and it is really cool. So worth watching, and I can't wait to see what it can do in the games. That's why we're here, but if you are interested, if you have a potential future in the gaming industry, this is good stuff to read.

Larry:
Do we have some news? We were talking off the air between the interviews about news. Sounds like you got a bunch of stuff queued up over there.

Jeff:
Yeah, we do have a few things to share.

Larry:
Shall I bring up your news ticker?

Jeff:
Oh, let's do that. Now that we're getting really close, just a shade over a week until Xbox Series X and Series S begin arriving in your homes, I can't believe we're here, by the way, you're probably wondering what's it like when I first boot up my console, what is that like? And you're seeing unboxings and things of the like, and you'll continue to see that from media and influencers.

Jeff:
But there's a great video that we have over on Xbox Wire featuring a couple of folks, Malik Prince from the Xbox team, and he's got Harrison Hoffman on. They walk through a and of elements of the UX, the user experience and how that all works. I always just love knowing, what am I really going to get? And we're starting to see that stuff.

Larry:
Right.

Jeff:
And so obviously you've got it running behind you, I've got it running behind me. There's no smoke and mirrors here, but it's just really cool.

Larry:
It's all real code.

Jeff:
Exactly. So it might be worth watching that video, and again you can find that on the Xbox YouTube page, or over on Xbox Wire with a nice little post there.

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Big update for Gears Five. Gears Five, as you've probably seen, is going to be ... First of all, the folks at the coalition, very technically adept. They know how to squeeze a lot of stuff out of a machine. And seeing what Gears Five is able to do on the Series X and on the Series S where it's running on 120 frames a second in verses, is really cool.

Jeff:
But they're not stopping there. So if you go over to gearsfive.com, you can see it actually. So Batista, Dave Batista.

Larry:
Dave Batista.

Jeff:
A professional wrestler under the name Batista, but then also you'll know from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Larry:
And James Bond villain.

Jeff:
Yes. So actor, wrestler. He's going to get an EGOT at some point. I'd imagine he can sing. Well he is a big Gears fan, and the coalition has put him in. There's a way you will be able to play Gears Five with Dave Batista as Marcus Phoenix. He does the voicing, he has the facial recognition, it looks exactly like him and you can see what that looks like, which is really cool.

Jeff:
In addition to that, the Gears Five team has added a ton of different ... It's almost like, you ever have a Game Genie back in the day?

Larry:
I may have.

Jeff:
It's okay. It was the nineties, you're allowed to say I cheated on- [crosstalk 00:41:27]

Larry:
It was the disconnected nineties.

Jeff:
So if you don't know, the Game Genie was this thing that would go in between your cartridge and your Nintendo, I think they had one for Sega and probably some other stuff. And it basically opened up a lot of the developer tools to go, I want unlimited lives, I want to slow the game down, speed it up.

Larry:
God mode.

Jeff:
All of that stuff. Well Gears Five is putting a bunch of different toggles and interesting things into the game that allow you to do a lot of things like that. Like a bobble-head mode. It almost reminds me a little bit of NBA Jam. All these different things where like the only way to reload is to do a proper active reload. So you can make the game harder, you can make the game easier. There's some cool filters in the game.

Larry:
It's like managed mods, right?

Jeff:
Yeah. And you can just turn on or off whatever you want. Like cooldowns for Jack, you can speed those up, you can slow them down. There's a couple weird ones that I have to try out. Like there's one called voiced gun sounds, toggle option to replace the gun sounds with voice defects. I don't know what that means yet, but I think there's probably going to be some funny stuff that you can do with this.

Jeff:
And with Gears Five being enhanced or optimized for Xbox Series X and Series S, I think there's a reason to go back just to see how beautiful it looks. But then also to have some fun and do some of these interesting things. And they do talk about what they're going to be doing with these next-gen machines, and a couple of side-by-side images. You can see with the light what they're able to do, and there's so much more depth to the image, it's really cool.

Larry:
Awesome.

Jeff:
Larry, it's a new show, so what do we talk about every week?

Larry:
Obviously we talk about Apex, we talk about TVs.

Jeff:
On the news side, what is there always something to talk about?

Larry:
I don't know, why don't you tell us?

Jeff:
Game Pass, Larry, there's always a game.

Larry:
Oh, without a doubt Game Pass.

Jeff:
So we had talked previously about some of the Lucasarts games, like Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle- [crosstalk 00:43:27]

Larry:
We had Tim on just a couple weeks ago to talk about it.

Jeff:
Exactly. But there are other games in addition to that that are coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC, for console, and to Android. So a few games that were in Game Pass but not on Android, like Player [inaudible 00:43:44] Battlegrounds, or Scourge Bringer, you'll now be able to play those games on the go. Some of the new titles coming, Celeste, Five Nights at Freddy's, Deep Rock Galactic, which was in early access for a long time.

Larry:
That's right.

Jeff:
It's a full version game. Ark, Survival Evolved, this is a game that I've seen has had some great improvements.

Larry:
We haven't played that since like v.01, right?

Jeff:
Yeah.

Larry:
Since we got our pants.

Jeff:
[crosstalk 00:44:10] Exactly.

Larry:
You know what, it's kind of like when you look at the original Ark, it's kind of like this whole COVID thing. Just getting pants on is a big deal.

Jeff:
You're not tilting down here on the podcast. But that's a game that shows some real improvement in performance with the Xbox Series X. I saw a great video on Eurogame or Digital Foundry this week on that.

Jeff:
So a lot of new games coming to Xbox Game Pass, as they tend to do ever so frequently. And including some spooky games for Halloween.

Larry:
Spooky.

Jeff:
Which may be the day you're hearing this.

Larry:
Spooky.

Jeff:
So we have a great feature on Tetris Effect Connected on how the game is optimized for Xbox Series X. Got that running behind me.

Larry:
You do.

Jeff:
And let me tell you, I am very into this. I love Tetris. Tetris, I feel like it's maybe the best pure game mechanic ever made. I can just never get sick of Tetris, I've been playing it for most of my life. I was playing it in our school computer lab when I was in sixth grade. I was quite good at it. Played it on Game Boy, that was the game that came with Game Boy. [crosstalk 00:45:19]

Larry:
And I know you're good at this, because I know that when we move offices, you're the guy to ask help us pack the boxes.

Jeff:
Ah, you learn [crosstalk 00:45:27] life skills. Game to life skills. I can pack a trunk like nobody's business.

Larry:
You know what, I should get Alexi on, the inventor of-

Jeff:
Alexi [crosstalk 00:45:35]?

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
He's [crosstalk 00:45:37].

Larry:
The strangest thing, I've told this story many times, so please stop me if I'm boring you. But I went to Russia with Alexi, and that was the craziest experience, to be in Russia with the inventor of Tetris. Just to talk with him one thing, but being Russia, we were in St Petersburg, was phenomenal. He's such an amazing individual. I love that guy.

Jeff:
Yeah. I think made perhaps the greatest game ever made. If I had to say there's a desert island game, that mechanic, it's Tetris. Because I've jumped back into Tetris Effect Connected this week, which is going to be coming out with the Xbox Series X and S, and it is stunning. It's like, "Oh it's Tetris, what more could it be?"

Jeff:
It is like an audiovisual masterpiece. I get really close to this TV, and it's swirling around at a high frame rate, and it is beautiful. The way the music plays, and every time you rotate a Tetramino and drop it in, it does some ... It just absorbs you. And you end up going into this zen state.

Larry:
That's what it's all about.

Jeff:
When they're coming down at level nine, you have to disconnect, it has to go straight from your brain to the screen. Like somehow your body is just in the way. And let me tell you, I've had some really fun times with it.

Jeff:
So if you grew up as a Tetris fan, you haven't played in a while, definitely check it out when that comes out.

Larry:
I will do that. I'm downloading it right now actually. I'm going to check it out, we've got a little build of it, and there's some co-op in it, we can do some co-op.

Jeff:
We could do that. There's a three versus one co-op, and I haven't gotten to try that yet. I did a little bit of head to head with Will Tuttle, the editor in chief of Xbox Wire. And I just wiped the floor with him, it was not even close.

Jeff:
A couple more news pieces.

Larry:
Go on.

Jeff:
One is Minecraft Education Edition. Minecraft, we know, teaches so many things to kids, in terms of earlier this year there were ways to learn about the environment, to learn about architecture, to learn about history, to take you to another place. My kid still, she's been playing Minecraft for half her life.

Larry:
That's right.

Jeff:
And she gets back into it all the time. Because the game just gives and gives, there's just so much to be able to do.

Jeff:
So just announced this week, Minecraft Education Edition is adding something called good trouble. And these are lessons in social justice for Minecraft Education Edition, along with a donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Jeff:
So US Congressman John Lewis, he pass away this year, he had a quote, I don't want to butcher it, but he believed in good trouble. Something that would lead to good things. There are times to build a better world by encouraging people to speak out. So that's going to be coming, there's a blog post on education.minecraft.net. It's really cool to see this, and this is something that I'm going to want to play through with my daughter, and I'll be talking to her school about that.

Larry:
Sweet.

Jeff:
And then we have two last things. We're going to go out into space.

Larry:
The final frontier.

Jeff:
You want to continue, Larry?

Larry:
No, that's all I had to say.

Jeff:
Tell me, were you an original Star Trek fan, Next Gen fan, Voyager, Deep Space Nine? What was your favorite of all of those?

Larry:
I like the original for what they were, and being able to see what they were trying to do in the sixties, and break some boundaries and barriers. So I really like the original. And of course in our many years at Comicon I've also had a chance to talk to William Shatner a few times.

Jeff:
Really?

Larry:
Which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. So there's a connection there for me as well.

Jeff:
Yeah. He's in his 90s now, isn't it?

Larry:
Is he? Let me just tell you-

Jeff:
I got to look that up.

Larry:
We haven't heard from him in a while, so I'm a little worried.

Jeff:
Oh don't start with that, Larry.

Larry:
I'm just saying, we haven't heard from him in a little while, I hope he's okay.

Jeff:
He was born in 1931, so he would be 89.

Larry:
You're almost dead on.

Jeff:
Wow.

Larry:
What about you, by the way?

Jeff:
Next Generation was my favorite. That hit when I was a pre-teen or something like that. And I've seen every episode. And I used to watch it, it was syndicated, so it would show every day, this is when I was living in Miami, at 7:00 PM on the CBS affiliate.

Larry:
Right.

Jeff:
And me and my grandpa would watch separately, he'd be in his house and I'd be in my house. And every day we'd watch, and then we would call and we'd talk about that episode. And we did that for a couple of years up until he died. And I don't think he saw ... Yeah, he passed away before the final episode, so he didn't get to see everything.

Jeff:
But yeah, the Next Generation always has a place in my heart. And I'm a big fan of Jean-Luc Picard, or Patrick Stewart I should say. Awesome actor. If you ever saw him in Extras, he was fantastic in that.

Larry:
Was he extra?

Jeff:
I guess you could say that, yes. Anyway, that's a whole other thing. So space.

Larry:
Space.

Jeff:
No Man's Sky, a game that is really synonymous with this generation, one of the standout titles I think of this generation, is getting ready for the next generation. So there is an Xbox Series X and Series S version upgrade that is coming at launch for existing players of No Man's Sky.

Larry:
Wow.

Jeff:
It's called No Man's Sky Next Generation. So that is proof that Star Trek The Next Generation was the best one.

Jeff:
So yeah, 4k 60, 42 player multiplayer, ultra visuals. I've played on PC, I think it may have been part of Xbox Game Pass for PC. So now folks on the next generation consoles are going to be able to see this game, which already was visually really sumptuous, I guess I would say, at yet an even higher level of fidelity.

Larry:
That's mesmerizing behind you, by the way.

Jeff:
I'm telling you, the game, you just get brought in to this zen. And then the sound going with your ...

Larry:
I'm watching this and it's just mesmerizing behind you.

Jeff:
I've rediscovered a love for Tetris. And there's a campaign actually, and it's actually very challenging towards the end. It goes really fast. So again, highly recommend.

Larry:
You know what we should talk about?

Jeff:
What should we talk about? Well obviously we should talk about the Xbox Series X. So cool, talk.

Larry:
I was going to say, I saw this week that apparently we're now in the refrigeration business.

Jeff:
We are, we are. It was a meme. It was a meme that showed up very quickly after the game awards, after we revealed the form factor of the Xbox Series X, and people were like, "Oh, it looks like a refrigerator." And there was a great Photoshop. And now it's real.

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
So I would recommend you go and you check out Justine.

Larry:
Oh Justine, how is she? I've got to talk to her. I'm going to see her next week, I'm really excited to see her.

Jeff:
You are?

Larry:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Okay. I was not aware of that.

Larry:
She and I are working on a project. A collab.

Jeff:
Really? We'll have to talk after the show, I had no idea. I feel like I probably should have known that. So anyways, we sent her down a real life Xbox Series X bridge. You have to watch the video, it's on YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram, everywhere you could imagine. Her tag, user ID, whatever, is ijustine. And then her sister Jenna Izarek also has a different angle, the two of them are awesome, and big Xbox gamers. But I really love what they did with the fridge. In fact she pulled for her unboxing today.

Larry:
[crosstalk 00:53:56] I saw that.

Jeff:
Out of the fridge. I hope they weren't in there too long, but I trust her. But here's the thing, you can win one of those.

Larry:
What?

Jeff:
So you want to head on over to xbox.com, look for the fridge. There is another one out there. Snoop Dogg has one as well. And ijustine's is filled with yerba mate, I don't know what Snoop's is filled with.

Larry:
I think we all know.

Jeff:
Yes. I mean, you know. Just look up for Xbox Series X Fridge. And you can enter to win, it's a sweepstakes. And why not?

Larry:
Are we doing something for the Series S then? We made a fridge for the X, what would we make for the S?

Jeff:
I mean if you look at the memes it would be some manner of hotplate, or a boombox or something like that.

Larry:
Do I have mine here? Yeah, I do have mine here. Hold on a minute, let me get it. This is the faux unit. We were talking about this on the Rooster T show the other night. It kind of looks like a drive-in speaker.

Jeff:
Yeah. I saw a good Photoshop of that. I'm sorry, sir, this is a Wendy's.

Larry:
Right.

Jeff:
It's small, it's quiet, it's beautiful.

Larry:
And it's powerful and fast. Two weeks.

Jeff:
Good things in small packages.

Larry:
Less than two weeks from today you'll be playing with your X and your S.

Jeff:
Believe it.

Larry:
Maybe one, maybe both, who knows.

Jeff:
Oh my God, yes. What are we going to do? Are we going to do a show next week? Are we going to do a show launch? What do you want to do?

Larry:
Well we've got a show. I'm looking at the calendar. Next week we should do a show, and then the following week we're working on some stuff. So I don't know, it depends. People are coming out of the woodwork that want to be on the show. This show is one of the hottest things right now. People are telling me it's the hottest thing.

Jeff:
Oh, don't get into that. Our brains all went there together.

Larry:
But yeah, we'll definitely do one next week, because I've got a few guests lined up. And then beyond that, who knows. We're going to have a busy November, busy December. Look, if you have time, I'm sure our listeners and our viewers would have time, right?

Jeff:
Yeah. I would make time. Granted I have to make time to vote. So I would say, this is my goodbye. Make sure your vote counts. Go drop it in person, don't put it in the mail at this point, you cannot guarantee it will be counted. So either vote in person or drop it in a drop box. Make sure you are heard.

Larry:
I have, where is it? Hold on a minute, I've got mine in here somewhere. Is it? I voted, and here you can actually check, it tells you what's going on, you can actually check that it's been counted. So I'm all set, I'm done.

Jeff:
Yeah, same. I dropped mine off, and then there's a little QR code. It's how it's supposed to be.

Larry:
So vote. Make sure whatever you do, if you're in the US. Wherever you are you should always vote to exercise your right to democracy, that's very important.

Larry:
Anyway, Jeff, I know you have to go. I have to go. I want to thank everybody. If you're just listening to this on iTunes or over on Android or Google Play or wherever, or SoundCloud, there is a video version of this. So you can actually see Jeff's finely coiffed hair.

Jeff:
I need a haircut.

Larry:
Just go to YouTube.com/mylastnamehryb.

Jeff:
I'm going to get a launch haircut. That's what I'm going to do.

Larry:
So head over there and you can see this whole thing. Basically if you're listening to just the audio, it's the audio version of this, so you can see video. Put it together.

Jeff:
If you think we sound terrible, wait till you see us.

Larry:
Oh, wait till you see what it looks like, it's even worse. And because we're at the end of the show, we're always going to ask you, like and subscribe.

Jeff:
Ring that bell.

Larry:
Whatever.

Jeff:
Wherever you're listening to this, or watching it, thank you very much.

Larry:
We're here for you. All right, Jeff, we'll see you next week. Dear listeners, dear viewers, thank you for downloading and listening. Drop some stuff in the comments, let us know what you think of the show, what you think of Jeff's hair. We're happy to do that. Anything else you want to say before we go?

Jeff:
No. I think you've said it all, Larry.