Gamescom, Matt Booty at PAX West and more

[MUSIC PLAYING] LARRY HYRB: Hi. It's Larry Hyrb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the official Xbox podcast. This is the September Edition. Hey gang! Welcome back!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is it really September?

LARRY HYRB: It is really September. We're somehow-- we are-- we've entered the September month. And where did the summer go? At least here in Seattle, summer is still going along. And Rebecca, here's the weather? How's the summer in New York?

REBECCA GORDIUS: So, hey. You know what? September is a great month in New York. It's hot, but I'm not just soaked in sweat as soon as I leave my apartment like I am in July and August. So I'm happy. I like September.

LARRY HYRB: Good. Well, speaking of sweat, we're going to talk a little bit later about Gamescom, which you are over in. That's going to be a lot of fun. Jeff, good to see you. Welcome back.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What's your-- what's your pumpkin spice latte count thus far, if it's apparently September? How many we on right now?

LARRY HYRB: Me or-- I don't have lattes. I have my little espressos and I'm done.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And he has a little bit of a Italian accent to that one. Did you do you go to Gamescom? That man-- You missed out, by the way, on being there. So you were at Gamescom, and I want to ask you all about it.

LARRY HYRB: We'll talk later.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But one of the main differences is everybody knows between the US and Germany, is they don't have Diet Coke there. They have Coke Light. Or as Larry likes to order, a Coca Light. A Coca Light.

LARRY HYRB: Jeff makes fun of me every year for that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look, it's either that or a Nespresso, so-- You want to practice that when you go to Germany.

REBECCA GORDIUS: least he doesn't say expresso. That's all.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, no.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: good.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, that's-- come on, please. Please.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, Rebecca, how many PSOs have you had so far?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I am not a pumpkin spice latte girl. It is just too sweet and too creamy. And yeah, sorry.

I will go for a caramel brulee latte though. I usually ask them to make it like, easy sweet. Yeah. But the pumpkin one, I mean, if you looked at the nutritional information on that one--

LARRY HYRB: It's basically a candy bar. It's basically a candy bar.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. But Jeff, how many PSOs are you had?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Because I forgot it was September. But it's September first. So now-- I usually have one per year, usually right around now.

LARRY HYRB: Wait a minute.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm getting one today.

LARRY HYRB: Aren't you going to have pumpkin spice bubble tea?

REBECCA GORDIUS: You talking to me?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Why do they not have that?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, that's right!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The closest I ever get is like, taro. I mean, it's a root vegetable, but is like, super good.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Well, I mean, they could do it because they have the matcha. Matcha iced tea with boba is usually my go to drink when I go to get boba anyway. So that could be a good [INAUDIBLE].

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I go for a roast-- like sometimes if you see again, my chair or something like that. There's a good one near-- Why is there not a pumpkin spice flavor?

LARRY HYRB: I don't know. I don't know what you guys are doing. I don't drink the bubble tea. Anyway. But let's get to games because people want to hear about video games, and we're getting into fall with the games.

I know that Jeff-- well, Rebecca, you have been gone for a few weeks. You've been traveling. You're on holiday, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But let's talk about what you're playing. And I wanted to hear a little bit about Gamescon.

And then Jeff and I will talk about war playing. So let's talk about what we were playing cause I know you sent me a list. So I got some b-roll, as we say in the industry, to show you. So where do you want to start?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Sure. I'll start with what I have actually played. So like you said, I've been traveling. So I went to Gamescom. I went to Amsterdam for a few days before that. I had a great time. Love Amsterdam. Stroopwaffels are the best.

But so I had the chance to play Myst, which is out on Game Pass. I think it came out in the '90s, the original game. And then I saw one of my--

LARRY HYRB: Well, to your point, I, mean here it is here. This isn't you playing. Myst was one of the first games that really was the killer app for CD-ROMs.

And there's a whole story that the Miller Brothers tell about-- or the Rand brothers-- sorry-- tell about how they had to optimize the data on it. It's fascinating. But, yeah. This is indeed one of the very first, if not the first CD game, and how they had to basically work so it's a puzzle game.

REBECCA GORDIUS: OK, I was going to say, I could try not to--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That was the game that was-- Yeah. Well, and that was like the game that would challenge how powerful your computer was. It was sort of like Crysis back in the day.

LARRY HYRB: There's actually two things. There's that, Jeff. And then it also-- it challenged how powerful you were up here, because we had no internet to go to. Right? You couldn't look it for the answers. You had to kind of figure it out yourself.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I remember those days.

LARRY HYRB: At least I did.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. That was around the time where you started to get that. Because I remember the first thing I used the internet for was to print out like Mortal Kombat 3 Fatalities, and then like coming to the arcade with that print out. And I was like, I got you guys now. Your scroll--

REBECCA GORDIUS: That's cute. So I had a friend who posted a clip of just like, the game's ambiance. And it was talking about how they loved to play it back in the day. And I was like, oh, it's on Game Pass. It looks pretty cool.

So I started it. I'm only like, less than an hour in. I'm just kind of going around the island and getting my bearings and going ooh, this does that. But so far, it seems really cool.

And I figured if it's a classic game, I might as well give it a shot. I think I was maybe a little bit too young when it came out? I don't know. Maybe not.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Almost certainly.

LARRY HYRB: I don't want to have any spoilers here, so I'll switch off of this.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I think back in the day, it was like slide shows.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I don't want to see how the puzzles work.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think back then it didn't animate that way. So I felt like you would like clicked and it would load up a new image. And it was sort of find and whatever with like, minimal animation. So that's a re-imagining almost.

If you end up liking that, I would definitely recommend you check out The Witness, which was from last gen. But it is just a whole island full of puzzle. It is a genius game, and I highly recommend.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. So just to put a little-- this game Myst is-- Oh my goodness. It's almost 30 years old. Came out in 1993.

And it was the Millers, Rand and Robin Miller. They kind of came out with it. Go read about it and the challenges they had about laying out the data, which are far from what we have today. So enjoy that. Good puzzles are good puzzles, right?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, for sure. Well, I think my dad didn't get his first PC until like '97 or '98. So any games that came out before then, I never played.

But yeah. So that's what I've been playing. I've only been home for a few days. Still not adjusted to the time zone. All caught on House of the Dragon though, which I am a fan of so far.

LARRY HYRB: Good.

REBECCA GORDIUS: But the other two games, I obviously haven't played them yet. I don't know Larry, if you're ready with the b-roll. But they were games that I actually learned-- well, not learned about-- but saw more of at Gamescon. So I had the opportunity to walk around the show floor a little bit. And I walked by THQ Nordic's booth. And they had this huge section dedicated to the SpongeBob Squarepants Cosmic Shake--

LARRY HYRB: That one I don't have for b-roll. So we can just talk right through that. I'll go full screen on you for that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's OK. But, yeah. I mean, it looks really cool. I loved SpongeBob Squarepants as a kid, teenager, and an adult.

But the game looks really cool. It's it looks a third person platformer, just a lot of different like puzzles, kind of going through Bikini Bottom. It looks like it's going to have a lot of those kind of, oh, that's so cute. I remember that from the show. Moments like that. So it looks pretty cool. And then the other one I was looking at, which I know that Jeff is also really excited for-- probably you too, Larry-- is High on Life. So we--

LARRY HYRB: That I have some action of, so let's play that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHS] Yeah, it looks great. So we did-- I'll get more into why I was at Gamescom in a second. But we had different press meeting rooms. And one of the rooms was for High on Life. And so they got to show people some behind closed doors like gameplay.

And I think it was playable at the Xbox booth on the floor, which I didn't get the chance to try it out. I was mostly hunkered down in the business center, which is a solid 15-minute walk without any person traffic--

LARRY HYRB: Oh, yeah, crowds. Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: --away from where the Xbox booth was. So going back and forth wasn't really a viable option. But, yeah, it looks really cool, first-person shooter. If you're a fan of Rick and Morty, it'll sound immediately familiar. I don't know. Jeff, you also are wanting to play this one, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yeah, yeah. Justin Roiland just has that voice. And it's just going to be-- Everyone's going to sound that way. But they had a game, Squanch Games is his development group.

And they had a game that came out on Xbox last year, two years ago called Trover Saves the Universe, which was also one of those things, where it was just very funny. And you would-- someone would be talking to you, and if you just put the controller down, they would just keep scripting. There was one point I did that. And it went on for over 10 minutes. I just had to see how far this would go.

LARRY HYRB: But they also-- you talked about Trover Saves the Universe. They also had-- I'm just checking here-- Dr. Splorchy presents Space Heroes, which was on Google Daydream. I don't know what that is. And then Accounting back in 2016.

They've been ramping up their game development platform. But yet, we're actually this weekend, at least in Seattle-- well, depending on where you listen to this-- is PAX is this weekend. And Jeff and I are going actually over to play some of the game at PAX and meet with Justin. So we're going to have some time with Justin. I'm going to try to get him on a future show as well.

REBECCA GORDIUS: [GASP] I'm jealous.

LARRY HYRB: So maybe we'll have you do that interview.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That could be fine, yeah.

LARRY HYRB: But that's a fun game. So we're looking forward to that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: How was PAX this year? How many gummy bears did you have?

LARRY HYRB: You mean Gamescom.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Gamescom.

LARRY HYRB: [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What did I say? Did I say PAX?

LARRY HYRB: You said PAX.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

LARRY HYRB: [LAUGHS]

REBECCA GORDIUS: I had-- OK, I had no gummy bears. Instead, I bought some local or-- I went to the grocery store, and I got a bunch of different snacks. They really like paprika flavor in Europe, which is interesting.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Really?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, when I was in France and England, I saw paprika-flavored chips and then also in Germany. And I was like, paprika is not that popular in the US. We put it on chicken but not on our chips. But, yeah, I got different kinds of-- Sandra had brought some kind of licorice, like fruity licorice from Germany in July.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sandra is our German lead.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, he's our German counterpart over there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Because we all got together in July. And he brought over those. And I took a picture, because I was like, OK, I'm going to get another bag of those, when I go to Germany next month. So no gummy bears, but I heard there was like 250,000 people that went to Gamescom last weekend. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I think people were wondering, like oh, it's--

LARRY HYRB: It sounds bigger when you say quarter of a million. [LAUGHS]

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh.

LARRY HYRB: Right?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. Better phrasing, yeah.

LARRY HYRB: You actually have a video. Do you want-- should I show this video now that you shot, because you [INAUDIBLE].

REBECCA GORDIUS: Sure.

LARRY HYRB: So this is a little video that Rebecca shot. Let me see if I can get it going. Here it is. And this was-- yeah, explain to us what's-- this is just--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HYRB: There it is.

REBECCA GORDIUS: So it looks pretty empty, but that's just because I shot this on the day that was only open to press and exhibitors.

LARRY HYRB: Right.

REBECCA GORDIUS: The consumer day, it's just packed. It's wall to wall people. But so what you see there is basically the better lit area, was like the hallway, where it connects all of the different halls. And then this is one of the halls. This is where the Xbox booth was.

LARRY HYRB: Ooh.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So you can kind see--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's a big spider.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, let's go back.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Aah.

LARRY HYRB: It's cute. I know. Minecraft Legends had a little photo station too. And I did my the "aah" photo that everyone does in the photo booth. But, yeah, so the Gamescom, the [INAUDIBLE], the hall where it takes place, is just huge. If you've ever been to E3, it's got to be like four times the size of the LA convention site.

LARRY HYRB: Easily.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's just massive. It is a pain in the butt trying to call a cab or an Uber. I must have walked around for like 15 minutes, because I got stuck in some construction area. It was like 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

LARRY HYRB: Which you got to walk--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I'm sweating so much.

LARRY HYRB: You got to walk to the business center, like Jeff and I used to. And then go down the hill to the train station. And then boom, you're in that underground train station, right, Jeff? And then we would--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I can never figure out how to get out the same way.

LARRY HYRB: Oh, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's very complicated.

LARRY HYRB: That's the game.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There were times where I would do it right. And other times where I was like, I have no idea where I'm at. And those are days where you walk like 20,000 steps in a day, because you're just trying to figure it out, yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: So the reason I went to Gamescom is because Minecraft Legends. We flew some of our folks out from Mojang Studios. [LAUGHS] It's cute.

So we had a new trailer. But we showed press gameplay in private for the first time. So we're saving our big gameplay moment for Minecraft Live, which is going to be coming up soon, later this fall. So we're going to deep dive on gameplay then. But we wanted to have the opportunity to meet with press while they were at Gamescom in Germany and show them a first look at the game.

I have to say, I think that those went really well. I think the people who came to the meeting were really impressed by how it looked. We kind of had a hard time articulating what the game genre was going to be, when we announced it. People were like, what does action strategy mean? Is that just another name for real-time strategy?

LARRY HYRB: Right.

REBECCA GORDIUS: But it makes a lot more sense, when you see how someone plays it, because we think like the action aspect is you're in this third-person view, where you're controlling the hero. And you're at the center of the action. So you can send your troops to attack a tower.

And while they're doing that, you can clear out the other enemies that are attacking your troops. And you can actually be in the combat yourself and wandering around. So that's how it's a little bit different from traditional RTS, where you just pointing and clicking and saying, go here, go here.

And then the strategy aspect obviously is, yeah, the battles take time. So we weren't even able to show a whole battle to the press, who came to the meetings, because they're so long. So it was just like, OK, we got like 25% of the way there. And then here's the cinematic. [LAUGHS] But it was really good.

I think, for the people who play Minecraft but not strategy games, it's easy enough to come and pick up. And then for the people who have played a lot of strategy games, they'll definitely see the appeal and see like, oh, I can be strategic in the way that I want to send these kind of units, or the way that you develop your character.

So I think maybe in a couple of months, let's bring someone on from the Legends team to chat with me more about it. And ideally, so that we can show a lot more gameplay to you.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, this, what you're seeing right now if you're watching the video, is the trailer that you guys revealed. So we're just playing that again here, if you're watching this on video on YouTube or Spotify.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HYRB: So it looks fun.

REBECCA GORDIUS: But, yeah, it's kind of an open world RTS. It's procedurally generated, so everyone's experience will be a little bit different. I think there's a lot that people are going to like. There's PVP. There's co-op in the campaign.

So anyway, I could talk about it all day. But, yeah, it was great. So we showed the games press. We did some interviews. And that's kind of what the PR person does, when they go to a gaming convention.

LARRY HYRB: That and walk around a lot.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's nice to be back into that, yeah, yeah.

LARRY HYRB: Well, we're glad to have you back and thanks for updating on what you're playing. You've had a busy couple of weeks working and playing. And, Jeff, what about you?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I've got my--

LARRY HYRB: Oh, hold on a minute. What you got there?

REBECCA GORDIUS: --Gamescom shirt.

LARRY HYRB: Oh, you sure do. Oh, nice. Hold on a minute. Let's go full screen on that. Go ahead and give us a--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, OK.

LARRY HYRB: Here we go.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I had the option to put my gamertag on the back but I didn't feel like paying an extra 20 euros for that. But I thought it was cool.

LARRY HYRB: That's fun. That's really cool. Anyway, Jeff, what about you? What have you been up to playing? Because you and I have a co-op story that we'll share in a minute. But I want to make sure I give you the time.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, so I was on vacation. And instead of doing like anything cool, I just was at my in-laws house in California playing video games all week. And let me tell you, it was the best, all right? I did that and I watched All or Nothing, Arsenal on Amazon video. And the most relaxing vacation I've ever had.

So the game that really got me sucked in came out last week. It's a JRPG, which is running over my shoulder here, called Soul Hackers 2. And so we know that coming up in-- I want to say October. The Persona series will begin coming to Xbox, your Game Pass Persona 5 Royal, which cannot wait for that.

And this is the same developer Atlas or same publisher, I guess I would say. And all Atlas RPGs have a similar DNA, where there's oftentimes more of a social element. And then there's also usually dungeons that you're going through, fighting and capturing different demons. And you're able to fuse them together and constantly change the way that you're battling to exploit different weaknesses and stuff like that.

It's usually very stylish, really cool-looking, great music. Soul Hackers 2 has all of those things. So I've been completely absorbed in it. While the Persona games tend to follow students, this follows adults, which is a nice change of pace that are in a future version of Tokyo or a future version of Japan. I don't know if it's supposed to be Tokyo or not.

And there's a big AI that's trying to stop the end of the world, because, hey, it's a JRPG. That's where it ultimately ends up coming to. But I've really been very into it. And I think it's a little bit of a relatively shorter game by these standards. I think you can beat it at the 30-ish to 40-ish hours as opposed to sometimes-- some of the Persona games may be closer to 100.

So this will be wetting my appetite and getting me excited for a lot of awesome RPG stuff to come on Xbox this fall. So I very much recommend Soul Hackers 2.

LARRY HYRB: Fun and then should we segue into our ridiculous experience.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, suddenly we were playing together, yeah.

LARRY HYRB: So Jeff and I were playing-- the other night we're playing Saints Row. Saints Row-- what's, I forgot the version.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's just say Saints Row.

LARRY HYRB: Just Saints Row.

REBECCA GORDIUS: OK.

LARRY HYRB: And it was as expected over the top, and we were having fun. It was co-op, kind of drop in drop out once we figured it out. But go ahead, Jeff.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I would say I really like how they're doing co-op, because it's like no matter where you're at-- I'm further in the game than Larry is. And it was like, you just join, and we beat some missions. When he goes back to his game, he will not have all missions next.

LARRY HYRB: They're all checked, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So every game does it a little bit different. So next, they want to preserve maybe narrative, continuity. This is like, don't worry about it. You have to skip that mission when you get there. And so I will say co-op, I had a lot more fun and co-op than playing solo.

The game throws a lot at you sometimes. And we started throwing back. So Larry very quickly recognized a voice of one of the characters.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, I tweeted this out now. Eugene Byrd, who we know from Gears of War. He plays Eli, who's one of the characters, because it was like-- seriously, Jeff, I think it was 5 seconds of like, oh, that's Eugene. [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I thought it was familiar. And so we took him on a ride. Larry, do you have this clip here?

LARRY HYRB: I do. So this is actually one mission with him. And we were--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And that's Eugene or Eli on the roof, right?

LARRY HYRB: Right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you sort of drop--

LARRY HYRB: By the way, that's my radio station.

[LAUGHTER]

REBECCA GORDIUS: I love that.

LARRY HYRB: But, yeah, we're going through here. And it was just a lot of fun. Jeff is driving. I'm shooting. We're trying to do it-- and then things kind of went sideways here.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Whoa.

REBECCA GORDIUS: [GASP]

LARRY HYRB: [LAUGHS]

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So you might be able to see off the side there. You can use-- if you run over a fire hydrant, the torrent of water will push your car upward. And I happen to on that. I was trying to test out-- I was trying to sideswipe a car. I ended up sideswiping a fire hydrant.

LARRY HYRB: Here watch this.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, here's the thing.

LARRY HYRB: It's the replay.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: While clearly that was probably not intended, the goal was to get away from those guys.

LARRY HYRB: And we did.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We got drove of sight, and we beat the mission because of it. So it all worked out.

LARRY HYRB: But it's a--

REBECCA GORDIUS: OK, wait, what did you do with the car though? Did you drive it?

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, we just--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's an open world game. You just dispose it. And you summon it later next time to go to the garage.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah. We got to the end of mission screen, which gives you the XP and the money. So it's just basically was like it was fine. But when we went up there, we-- and we were just having a great time, because it was that over the top the whole time again. Here we go, boom. And it was like-- We couldn't have planned--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I love that you stayed on the top of the car too.

LARRY HYRB: Well, that's actually Eli. That's actually the character.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, right, Eugene.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, the AI. But it was just a lot of fun to do that. So it was fun to play those open world sandbox games. Jeff and I were talking like, we're looking for a good co-op game to play. We found one. So that was fun.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go.

LARRY HYRB: What else have I been playing?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Steven been playing anything else, Larry?

LARRY HYRB: Cult of the Lamb, which--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, hah.

LARRY HYRB: --which Phil Spencer-- Phil and I were playing a couple of weeks ago. And he's like, you got to play it. So I started playing it. Have you guys played Cult of the Lamb yet. It's--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I played the first hour or so yeah.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, what it is-- it's of a dark Animal Crossing, right? [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, demonic Animal Crossing, yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That sounds fine.

LARRY HYRB: But that one I'm playing a lot of. What else? Yars, Recharged, which I played last night. Of course, Saints Row. So I'm playing it--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is that like a remake of the old Atari game?

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, yeah. And of course, we met Howard Scott, the designer, the gentleman who did it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Howard Scott Washaw.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

LARRY HYRB: So he's right in the credits.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, that's awesome.

LARRY HYRB: It was fun to play that. But anyway, I'm playing a little bit of that. And just kind of to your point as we talked about at the beginning of the show, we're getting back into fall in terms of the regular rhythm and getting frankly, to stay indoors a little more. Or in Jeff's case, at his in-laws with a controller in his hand.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look, I just threw my Series S in the backpack, went on down, plugged it into their TV. And I was like, leave me alone.

LARRY HYRB: We've got--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And I regret nothing.

LARRY HYRB: We've got a couple of things. We've got Matt Booty coming up later. He's going to talk about-- we talked about PAX. But I figured, Jeff, you've got some news we want to go over. So I don't know if we can roll into that right now. And then we'll roll into the Matt Booty interview.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, so let's talk about things to play. Great announcement that actually hit over the-- at this point, it would be close to a week. It was last weekend. A series of games that are part of Humble Games are going to be coming soon to Game Pass. Most of these on console, cloud, and PC. There was one of them that's only on PC.

But they include Midnight Fight Express, Prodeus, Ghost Song, Moonscars, Infinite Guitars, SIGNALIS, and Coral Island. A number of these I think were shown at Gamescom. A number of these will be playable at PAX. So I'm looking forward to getting into those.

And if you're a Game Pass member, some of these are available. Other games from Humble Games are available right now like, Chinatown Detective Agency and Next Space Rebels, Unpacking, which is a great game. And so, yeah, lot of great support from Humble Games on Game Pass and a lot of things to play.

Also, now that you mentioned, we are into a new month. That means, new games with gold. So available now, Gods Will Fall and Thrillville. And then, second half of the month, Double Kick Heroes, and really an all time classic that I insist you play, Portal 2. And that'll be available starting September.

LARRY HYRB: If you haven't played that, you're missing one of the gems of the 360 generation.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Absolutely, takes the Portal action to beyond it's-- further than you think you could. And one of those games that makes you feel smart, when you figure it out. I think I ended up just staying up all night, when I was, I think I'm close. And it turned out I wasn't. And I just stayed up all night--

LARRY HYRB: That's always the best, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --kind of a boys' night until I beat it. It was until my first meeting the next day, but I regret nothing. Interesting, you were talking about Atari.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And while this is not an Atari game, but from that genre or from that time, Xbox and Glass Animals team up for a Pac-Man World custom console. So there's a lot of things going on there. But apparently, if you see Glass-- so Glass Animals-- we went on earlier version of the tour.

But when they were in New York, for their Dreamland IRL shows, they actually-- I guess they're big Pac-Man fans and Xbox fans and see some really cool play in there.

LARRY HYRB: These are artists for some people that don't know what Glass Animals are.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: They're music. They're musician. You've heard Heat Waves, I'm sure. They have a lot of other stuff. They've been around for a while.

LARRY HYRB: I don't want to assume anybody knows anything on this show. I don't want to assume anything.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think they have four albums. And they won Best New Artist last year.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't know how. Don't ask me how the Grammys work. All I know is they are good and big soccer fans as well. Well, now I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, you can win this Pac-Man, really cool-looking Pac-Man Series S console. There's an official sweepstakes that's going on now through September 19th. I recommend you check out Xbox Wire, which is that news.xbox.com if you want to learn more.

We also announced this week a lot of shows. We have PAX this week. We had Gamescom last week. Two weeks from now is Tokyo Game Show 2020.

LARRY HYRB: Oh, I miss that show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So we are pleased to confirm Xbox will be making its digital return to Tokyo Game Show. There will be a streamed broadcast that is curated for folks in Japan and Asia. It's a regional show. And as such, that stream will be happening at 2:00 AM, Pacific time 5:00 AM, 5:00 AM Eastern.

So it is made for gamers in Asia. It will be available on Tokyo Game Show's official YouTube channel. This is not a stay-up-all-night. This is a wake-up-the-next-day. And let me see. It will, yes, Tokyo Game Show will embody the solidarity of gamers and the promising future that lies ahead for our industry.

So what can you expect from the stream? Expect to see updates on existing titles from Xbox Game Studios, and titles launching from developer partners that we hope will delight players here in Japan, across Asia, and around the world. So there you go. Expectations firmly in check.

LARRY HYRB: It feels good to get back to things again, to your point Rebecca. You're at Gamescom. We're getting to PAX. And things are kind of, whoo, getting back into normal rhythm. I love it. Go ahead, Jeff.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, no, I just wanted to talk real quickly. A few games that will be out by the time you hear this or early next week, Destroy All Humans! 2 Repro. If you recall, they remade the original Destroy All Humans!

LARRY HYRB: I love that series.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, they've remade Destroy All Humans! 2. It is available now. Tinykin, I don't know if that's about Stine. But that is available now as well. Zero Escape, Zero Time Dilemma, we've had a couple of the Zero Escape games that have come out on Xbox recently. And JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which there's a manga. There's been a series of games, fighters that have just tons and tons of characters. If you're into it, you know. And LEGO Brawls also out as well.

LARRY HYRB: LEGO sounds like fun.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So quite a bit to play these days. And I was thinking about manga. My kids gotten very into manga and anime as of late. Are any of you into that at all? All right, Rebecca, do you watch it?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I've been-- let's see, I just finished Jujutsu Kaisen recently. And I've been rewatching Demon Slayer.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So that is her favorite right now is Demon Slayer. And she got very into it. And I noticed that there was a Demon Slayer game out for Xbox that came out late last year. And I ended up buying it for her. And it actually you relive a bunch of the stuff from season one.

So I've kind of seen it over her shoulder. You want to know what your kid is watching. And I was like, it's kind of interesting. And I may end up going back and watching it. Gary Whitta is apparently very big into it. Gary Whitta, you might know, wrote Rogue One as part of kind of funny [INAUDIBLE].

LARRY HYRB: A friend of the show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You know him very well, Larry. So-- it seems like I need to be on--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, have you checked the game out? You say it's not on Game Pass though, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, it's not a Game Pass game. It's made by CyberConnect2. And if you know, you know. But going back even like two generations, they would make these beautiful-looking Naruto games. They're all just fighting games, these sort of arena fighters.

And the game looks like the show. The game might in sometimes even look better than the show, because there's more animation and stuff like that. And so if you're a Demon Slayer fan, which seems like you are, you should probably check that out. It's really cool how they did It

LARRY HYRB: Cool.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Nice.

LARRY HYRB: We've got a couple other elements there. And then we are going to actually probably go right into Matt Booty. But I know you got a couple other things you want to talk about--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No, I just wanted to say, let's talk about that, because announced during the week, this week-- well, we had announced a few weeks ago that Matt Booty is going to be headlining or keynoting at PAX.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Larry, you're a keynote yourself from [INAUDIBLE].

LARRY HYRB: I'm part of that Alumni Club, right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You get a special jacket like a green jacket or something like that with a crest.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think you should get a crest.

LARRY HYRB: Crest.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it's going to be hosted-- or joining Matt will be BlondeNerd, Brittany Brombacher, who you may know from What's Good Games. and is--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Friend of the show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I would say also a friend of the show.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, we've had her on.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So she'll be hosting this as well. And I guess, you talk to Matt sort of a preview of what the Storytime is.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, we're going to talk about that in just a minute. But I want to just remind folks before-- and I know we're kind of jumping around a little bit here, because we're getting back in our groove-- is the Xbox Gear Shop has a back to school sale. Jeff and Rebecca, it is now onto September 12th. You can save up to 40% off on select gear, gear.xbox.com.

So if you're looking for gear, it's always a good place to swing by. And they've got some good stuff. But that said, speaking of gear, Matt Booty was amazing to talk to. You both have spent some time with Matt, right, Rebecca, Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HYRB: He's really great.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I love Matt.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, let's talk to him and he's going to tell us-- he's going to give us a little preview of what you can expect from his PAX speech this weekend.

All right, as we discussed, I'm excited that Matt Booty is joining me, CVP of Xbox Game Studio. Matt, welcome to the show.

MATT BOOTY: Hi, how's it going?

LARRY HYRB: It's going great. I got to tell you. Before we get started, you and I have had fits and starts. I've never had you on the podcast. I've had Phil on multiple times. But you and I for whatever reason, the timing has never worked out. But it has now.

MATT BOOTY: It seems like we've tried to do this many times. So it's good to make it happen.

LARRY HYRB: It's happening. But I'm really excited to have you on, because this weekend here in Seattle, PAX West, big gaming convention, you are doing Storytime, which is pretty exciting, right?

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, Storytime is a good way to say it. It'll be a-- first of all, I love PAX. I think it's one of my favorite shows. It always has been.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah.

MATT BOOTY: It's just so much-- it's so immediate, right? We do big shows, where we've got this scripted broadcast and things. I love those.

LARRY HYRB: They're highly produced. [LAUGHS]

MATT BOOTY: Highly produced. But I love PAX, just walking the show floor, seeing everything from the big publishers to small indie devs. And most of all, I just love the fact that it's developers and fans and players and press. It's everybody just mixed together.

So one of my favorite shows-- and it just feels a good opportunity, where we are in the industry right now with a lot of things changing to just talk about what's exciting about working in games, why is it such a cool job. It's amazing what we get to do every day, right?

And just to talk about that, to get some energy back into why it's fun making games, what's fun about the industry. And also just share how many doors are open to people that want to get involved, right? Never before have there been so many avenues and different ways that people can pursue careers and games. So those are some of the things I want to hit on. I'm kind of excited to talk about it later this week.

LARRY HYRB: Well, I know that a lot of people are excited to hear from you, because you've got a very interesting journey. And I don't want you to do the Storytime now. So that people don't watch it or tune in, because you've got just so many stories. We only have so much time.

But your journey through the industry was just so interesting and how you got there. Give us a couple of the moments or the highlights. And I know you're going to go into more detail during the Storytime at PAX.

MATT BOOTY: Well, one of the things I'm most grateful for was the fact that I showed up at a place called Midway Games in Chicago in the early 90s, where we made big arcade games and pinball games. And it was design and engineering. It was all just right there in a big factory building. And just the people that I got to work with, Eugene Jarvis, the creator of Robotron and Defender; Mark Turmel, who made NBA Jam and NFL Blitz; Ed Boon, who created Mortal Kombat.

I learned so much from being around those great designers. And to me, that was just a golden era for me. The modern time that I look back on with that same fondness is really being able to spend multiple years with Mojang and the Minecraft team. Similar thing, just around so many creative people. So for me, those highlights are really around that the people that I've been grateful to spend time with. And hopefully, we can touch on a little bit of that later this week.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, and you're going to talk about that during your Storytime at PAX West, which will be streamed. If you're there in person, of course, you can watch it. But it'll also be streamed on the PAX site. But I also want to be clear, because you and I chatted just a moment ago before we started recording. The surprises are going to be about your career. You're not coming in and dropping a bunch of other news, right? Is that what I understand?

MATT BOOTY: [LAUGHS] Yeah, we're not going to be doing game reveals or showing up. For sure, I think we'll talk about some of the stuff that's going on, right? From just the point of view of what's happening in the Studios and how are some of the projects going. And I want to hit on that.

One of the things I'd also love to be able to just share with people is just a view into what game production is like right now. it's such a range from small games. And we have our game Grounded, which really started out with less than 20 people. All the way up to something Halo or [INAUDIBLE] that's just got hundreds of people working on it at one point.

So I'd love to be able to share a little bit more of a view behind the scenes, into how that comes together. But we're not going to be doing any big reveals or updates.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, and of course, we just came off-- what was it? A week ago, we're just at Gamescom, where we had a bunch of our nice news that we talked about. And some of those games, which we announce from coming out of the Studios that you run as the head of the Xbox Game Studios, is some of them you've had a chance to play, like Pentiment, right?

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, Pentiment-- well, first of all, it's great to see the reaction to Pentiment at Gamescom. I think that and the nomination for Most Original Game-- that game to me sums up one of the best things about our platform and our approach to Studios together, which is a small team that feels it's got creative empowerment, creative liberty to go make something that really is a passion project.

But yet, has the support ought to be something that hopefully finds a big audience and really interests a lot of people. And if you listen to the game team talk, they feel that the combination of the support that they get from our Studios system, combined with the access to players that Game Pass brings is a great combo for them.

So I'm excited, Pentiment. We have been able to play it. I call it-- what is it-- the medieval monastery murder monk mystery. You can throw all your alliteration in there. But it is absolutely the work of somebody, who's got just a deep expertise and a deep passion for that subject matter. It's pretty cool.

LARRY HYRB: Well, when you look through your industry, you've talked about a lot of the folks that you worked with. And this is when you were working in the arcade industry. And you have so many great stories that I'm sure you're going to share at Storytime. Who is someone in the industry that has had a big impact on you?

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, well, I mentioned Eugene Jarvis early on. Eugene, just a great game designer, a great business person. These little nuggets stick with you-- it was late one night once, and I was working on the first game that I was the game designer, lead programmer, team leader on. And it was a game that ended up-- I think the final assessment was it looked wonderful, didn't play great.

And Eugene just stops me in the Hall on the way out to the parking lot. And he says, hey, you know how you know you're making a good game. And I go, no. And he goes, people will tell you you're making a good game.

[LAUGHTER]

And it was just one of those good lessons that just-- today, how do we get feedback about our games? We so plugged in to the community and the internet and social media. But there's still that truth that if people see the early stuff you're working on. And you're either going to get excitement, or you're probably going to get silence.

And you want to look for that excitement. And if you're not hearing that, you've probably got some things that you want to go rethink about your game. And that was in a world, where games took two years to make. Now they take longer and involve more people. But I think the sentiment is right, which is look for early signs that you're on to something cool. And that was a great nugget of wisdom from Eugene.

LARRY HYRB: It's interesting, because having started my career on the console side, and you started on the arcade cabinet side, which are still a thing today. Halo, which is under your group, there's a Halo arcade machine. But it must have been so interesting for you to see, to ride the wave from the 8-bit to the 16-bit to the cabinet error to the home to the PC. It's been a real roller coaster.

But tell us what are-- and I think you gave the answer a moment ago. What's through line that has never changed? Is it just good games?

MATT BOOTY: It's good games. I think it's a couple of things. First, no game happens without teamwork. That's one of my favorite things about making games and working in games, is just it is people coming together and the happy accidents and the collaboration that you get.

A lot of things have changed. I worked on driving games, racing games early in my career for a while. And we used to joke around that who's the poor person that has to go and make all the chain link fences for the racetrack?

[LAUGHTER]

You know?

And yet, here we are. We just did a review of Forza Motorsport a few weeks ago. And they're still making race tracks like the Indy 500 and Road America. And all of these are still chain link fences. And today though, a lot of those are procedurally generated and the technology so much-- but yet, there's still making the chain link fences.

So there's still people that do the layouts for the track. So it's interesting to look at something like Forza Motorsport, where some of the technology is just science fiction, right, like the on-track ray tracing and the tire physics, and things we could just never have imagined 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

But yet, a lot of the process about how a track is laid out, and how different teams work on the environment, and the track surface and the cars, and a lot of that is still the same. So that's something I like, where even the most simple platforming game today could use something as advanced as ray tracing. But yet it has its roots in, those platformers that we all played on the SNES long ago. I like that a lot.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's interesting you say that, 'cause you worked on some of these racing games. But it's a far cry from the little maybe 30 or 45 pixel sprites that you made back then that were on the arcade screen, the CRT to what we're seeing as you said, pointed out in Forza, which is where there's millions and millions of pixels on those car.

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, obviously the photoreal-- the push towards photorealism and the graphics capability is the biggest thing, which is fascinating to me, right? To think back to how much work went into-- if you think about-- I think it was Pit-Fighter was the very first fighting game that had the ability to have sprites that could scale.

So the character could move toward you and back right. And it was just terribly blocky. But at the time, it was magic, right? [LAUGHS] And you think back to the first 3D games like Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racer and just how far we've come. I could talk for hours about that. So, yes, awesome stuff. [LAUGHS]

LARRY HYRB: I was thinking this. One of my favorite arcade games was Spy Hunter. You know--

[HUMMING SPY HUNTER SOUNDTRACK]

So I don't know. I'm going to talk to the guys on one of your studios, and see if they maybe they can do that with Forza or something. I need my Spy Hunter ad on. But that's just my personal request.

MATT BOOTY: [LAUGHS]

LARRY HYRB: Getting back to Storytime, when you're on the-- what are you looking forward to, when you hit the floor? You talked about how much you enjoyed walking around the floor. We've got Bandai, Devolver, Sega, Nintendo, a bunch of more on the show floor. What's your strategy when you hit the floor?

MATT BOOTY: I just am always drawn to the person that's in that one back section that set up the card table with the monitor. And they've got--

LARRY HYRB: You know who's going to be standing next to them is Chris Charla, because he's always back there.

[LAUGHTER]

MATT BOOTY: He's always back when Chris is back there. Well, to me, that's cool. Just because you never know what you're going to see that ends up being the next big thing. And not that it's about being the next big thing. To me, that is the embodiment of what's different about PAX, is that you can show up with a card table and this little 4-foot wide booth, and show your game.

And some of the cool ideas, and the innovation, and just the fact that people are doing that, because they love it, that's where I like hanging out. It's just fun to see.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, it's definitely one of the best independent game dev shows around. We talked a little bit about your-- you did a review of the next Forza. And you talked about Pentiment. What are some of the other things you're playing, maybe released or unreleased? You talked about some of the unreleased stuff. But tell me about some of the release things that you're playing.

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, well, right now, there's just been a lot of focus on the stuff that's coming up, right? So having the chance to look at Redfall as that comes together, which is really cool. Seeing some more builds as things come along on Starfield, which just continues to be really amazing, and just a lot of excitement to see that, which is really cool.

We just did some reviews with Double Fine, looking at their upcoming slate of games, which is pretty cool, real early concept ideas. And I'll just say, one of the things I'm most excited for, when we get to talk about it, is what inXile is up to. They've just got something really cool coming together. And we were just down at that studio with Phil, Phil Spencer. And he got to play it for a while. And there's some cool mechanics in there.

So just trying to keep up with what all the teams are working on. As we talked, about we just did a really comprehensive review of Forza Motorsport. And it's amazing. It's really, really, I think, going to be again, reset the high bar for what simulation and competitive racing games can be.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, the other thing I love is what we do at these studios. And I'm sure other studios do this. But you have a lot of folks talking to each other to borrow technology and ideas, whether-- it could be two different games. For instance, I think you were telling me about Undead Labs is working with one of our other studios. So things that you just normally wouldn't think of.

But again, to your point, good games are good games and good gameplay and things matter in being able to use that synergy. Can you talk a little bit about that?

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, well, we have a structure in place. We just call them summits-- for lack of a better word. I don't know-- where we get subject matter experts together. They come together for one or two days. And it's grounds up. It's sort of grassroots by the people that do this work.

So we'll have an animation summit or even a user interface summit. Or we'll have a Unreal Engine summit, physics summit. I could go on. I think we did in the last year close to 25 of these. And that's our main mechanism for the teams to share technology back and forth.

And so you mentioned Undead Labs. They're working with The Coalition up in Vancouver at Gears of War studio, and using some of the technology around Unreal 5, and some of the stuff that's been in Gears of War before to bring that into State of Decay, which is another one by the way. Most recently, I think it was just the week before last, we spent all day down at Undead Labs over in Seattle, which was great. Getting the update on State of Decay 3, which has really got some cool stuff.

In addition to the fact that State of Decay 2 just continues to grow its user base. It's kind of this just stealth thing that just keeps growing. And it was cool to get an update. I think we hit 11 million live to date players on State of Decay 2 now, which is pretty cool.

And all of that, the things that they're doing at State of Decay 2 are really-- the testbed, the proving grounds for all the stuff that's going into 3.

LARRY HYRB: Right.

MATT BOOTY: Yeah, so even a game like Grounded, which is coming up here to launch as the 1.0 release. A game like that made with a small team, it's really only possible, because that team was able to leverage so much of the technology that Obsidian has put together, right? They've got this toolbox available.

And so this cool idea, what if kids get shrunk down trapped in the backyard. But that team's able to do really, really a lot more than a team that size should be able to do, because they're pulling stuff off the shelf that Obsidian has put together, that other Studios have put together.

So the topic of sharing tech comes up an awful lot. And I think people can sometimes take that to mean, we've all got to be on the same engine. It's got some clever nickname. And we all have it.

But it's really not about that. It's more about making sure that the teams are connected. And that they've got access to each other. So that they can pull those little bits and pieces together as they need them.

LARRY HYRB: Yeah, that's just fascinating about how people can learn from different things. And the technology from a game that has nothing to do with one other game, may show up. We're getting ray tracing in Pentiment-- I don't know so.

[LAUGHTER]

MATT BOOTY: You joke about that. But the ray tracing jokes abound if that's right. [LAUGHS]

LARRY HYRB: You just never know. Well, Matt, I'm looking forward to seeing you this week. And I'll be down there in person. I know that we're excited to have you tell some of your stories. And we're not-- again, you're not dropping new news about games and unreleased information.

You're going to talk about your personal journey. That's what I love about Storytime, is they're so personal. And I got to tell my story at my Storytime in Melbourne, Australia a few years ago. And I'm looking forward to-- I know some of yours. And I know I'm going to learn some things, when I see your Storytime.

So any last thoughts before I let you go and get ready for your big-- I know you got a bunch of stuff to do between now and then. But getting ready for your keynote.

MATT BOOTY: No, it's great to catchup. We got to talk. And, yeah, hopefully, we can frame this up as a window into what's going on in the development world. And also, just give a little bit of a behind the scenes look on how just about anybody can find a path into games these days, if it's something that they've got a passion around. So I'm excited for it, so thanks. It's good to catchup.

LARRY HYRB: Matt Booty, CVP of Xbox Game Studios. Thank you and we'll see you this weekend.