The Price of Game Pass Continues to Rise

Jaime, Vance and Tony talk about the newest Game Pass price increase.

Transcript

00:00:00.26
Jaime G
cheaper than digital.

00:00:04.03
Tony Sisk
Right. Yeah.

00:00:04.34
Jaime G
Not right away.

00:00:05.34
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Especially when we get into our topics of, you know, tonight we're talking in Microsoft.

00:00:06.30
Sentfrmheaven
Yes.

00:00:11.58
Tony Sisk
If that, is that what we're talking?

00:00:13.73
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:00:14.30
Tony Sisk
Do you have something else?

00:00:14.42
Sentfrmheaven
yes

00:00:16.66
Tony Sisk
So Microsoft and game pass and probably playstations, you know, stuff too.

00:00:25.60
Jaime G
um I mean, Microsoft

00:00:25.79
Tony Sisk
Um,

00:00:27.15
Jaime G
Microsoft has given has given us a lot to talk about right now, man.

00:00:32.11
Tony Sisk
Yeah, right? All right, well, I'm ready to talk about it.

00:00:37.88
Jaime G
OK.

00:00:38.70
Tony Sisk
You ready?

00:00:40.11
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:00:41.52
Tony Sisk
Vance, you ready?

00:00:43.63
Sentfrmheaven
I'm ready.

00:00:45.10
Tony Sisk
All right.

00:00:48.86
Tony Sisk
Hi, folks. Welcome back to Good Game Radio. I'm your host, Tony, speaking. I'm here tonight with the Fool House. of my team at Good2GameRadio. We've got Jaime.

00:00:59.61
Tony Sisk
We've got Vance. Welcome, guys. Welcome. It's been a few weeks since we've all three have been together to record an episode. So it's always and excellent time to, you know, get back and just enjoy each other's company, even though we're all remotely connected, ah and just talk some games and what's what's going on in the gaming sphere.

00:01:23.74
Tony Sisk
And today we've got some you know some news we want to jump into that dropped this past week and has been going on, I think, for five five or six days now.

00:01:34.80
Tony Sisk
And I think most people have probably already heard about it. But since you know we are one of the top-ranked independent Xbox podcasts, interestingly enough, we we should at least talk about it.

00:01:50.03
Tony Sisk
And that Xbox's or Microsoft's Xbox's, uh, game pass, ah price increases that they have packaged as, you know, giving us more for you know, uh, giving us more, but, uh, so we've got that going on and we've also got rumors of Xbox leaving the hardware space altogether.

00:02:13.22
Tony Sisk
So lots of news out of Microsoft and and the the Xbox camp. So I'm ready to jump into it. And this lets let's kick off of discussion.

00:02:25.16
Tony Sisk
Who wants to go first? Well, first I will say this. ah I'll kick us off because, you know, we are always proud to announce how great or how good we are at making some predictions.

00:02:44.02
Tony Sisk
And, and I think we've repredicted this about four years ago. So we are at this point where we have Microsoft's Xbox.

00:02:57.10
Tony Sisk
Nobody knows what in the world they're doing. That is, it's, it's kind of gone crazy over there. So,

00:03:02.75
Jaime G
I don't think they know what they're doing, man.

00:03:04.89
Tony Sisk
yeah Right. So let's start with the ah the price increases at Game Pass ah for the Game Pass service. So the ultimate tier, which um I think it was like $22, has gone up to like $30.

00:03:22.60
Tony Sisk
And each tier below that, which there were two tiers below that, have all increased in price too. But the tier that think most people... subscribed to was probably the ultimate tier offered the best best value ah the entire catalog that they offered plus day one drops um which is really good value now there's no denying that game pass offered a great value for the last few years and but just now when microsoft is finally starting to get this production line rolling with their game tiles and stuff they've

00:04:02.62
Tony Sisk
It seems like they've kind of crunched the numbers and discovered, you know what? We should be asking for a little bit more money. So now it's $30.

00:04:12.18
Tony Sisk
So is the value still there? What do think?

00:04:19.07
Jaime G
Personally, I mean, this would be like the highest description of anything I pay for, of anything, right?

00:04:19.47
Sentfrmheaven
Mm-hmm.

00:04:30.51
Jaime G
I mean, i got a I've got Netflix, I recently got on Hulu, and those two combined are not the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

00:04:44.06
Jaime G
and i and i think And I think I would use it less than as you do then I use Netflix and Hulu combined.

00:04:51.94
Tony Sisk
Mm-hmm. Vance, what about you?

00:04:55.67
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, that's steep. Because I think I only really play like two games a year and that's like like dedication. That's like 2K and Call of Duty and $30 a month for you know, um games that probably not going to play.

00:05:09.24
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:05:15.18
Sentfrmheaven
That's steep. Like I hooked up the Xbox last night literally and went through the catalog and I was like it's not worth $30. Like like This is not.

00:05:27.20
Tony Sisk
Right. So $30, a one-year subscription, that's $360. And sixty dollars and like you made a very good point, Vance. You play NBA 2K, and what's the other game you play?

00:05:40.02
Sentfrmheaven
ah

00:05:40.30
Tony Sisk
Call Duty?

00:05:40.45
Sentfrmheaven
Call me.

00:05:41.50
Tony Sisk
Okay. yeah Which is not even included.

00:05:46.94
Tony Sisk
Right? I don't think it's not being included in the Ultimate tier, is it? Or is it?

00:05:53.85
Sentfrmheaven
um I know they included the beta, but ah I think that's it. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be included.

00:06:01.66
Tony Sisk
Right. So, so that's the question, like, you know, for somebody that's only playing a game or two, like other people, examples would be, you somebody just exclusively plays Fortnite. Like one of my, one of the guys in my small group, um Chris, that's all he plays is Fortnite.

00:06:23.50
Tony Sisk
Uh, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him in that regard. But, you know, back when it was $16 and then $20, you could, you could like say, oh, you know, there might be some new games that I would like to try out at the $20. That's where I was at.

00:06:40.44
Tony Sisk
Right. Um, like it was still a good enough value uh, I played expedition 33 this year because of game pass. Um, and there was a couple of other titles I was going to get around to playing. Go ahead behind me.

00:06:55.44
Jaime G
All right, just for context, you know for anybody who's listening, Tony just said something. um Xbox Game Pass, I could be wrong.

00:07:06.38
Jaime G
I think launched at a price point of $16.99. Let's round to $17. In July 2024, it got an increase to $20, $3 increase. in july twenty twenty four increase to twenty bucks three dollars increase But now it's going from $20 to $30. That's a $10 increase, OK?

00:07:25.47
Jaime G
I just want to throw that out there for context, because I know you were just hitting on the prices. right Sorry.

00:07:32.03
Tony Sisk
Right. So I, um, mean, it was still even $20. like, okay, there's still enough value there at $20, but $30, just like you said, Jaime, $30, that, that would be the most for subscription of any of the subscriptions. And we have a ton of subscriptions that, um, my wife and I have, you know, the different, uh, TV streaming services and stuff like that.

00:08:01.57
Tony Sisk
Um, not to mention, you know the subscriptions that are required to keep this podcast up and running and stuff. And, uh, And then when you have all kinds of new types of subscriptions coming along with AI and stuff of that. So if you're interested in like AI, those are interesting those are new types of subscriptions that are coming along.

00:08:21.00
Tony Sisk
But none of them, I think, are like majority are that $20 range or less. But for $30 like... but but for thirty dollars and like you start to have two months.

00:08:33.72
Tony Sisk
That's a new game every two months. Like, I think that you could own.

00:08:36.75
Jaime G
Yeah, right.

00:08:40.28
Tony Sisk
and And here's the thing. It's like, they, you, Jaime, you and i you know, we've, but we've talked in multiple, multiple, multiple episodes about owning physical copies of games.

00:08:55.13
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:08:55.91
Jaime G
yeah

00:08:57.59
Tony Sisk
And, since the PS5 has, has released, you know, I don't have a ton of games, but I do have quite a few physical copies of games, right, and I've paid almost full retail price for those, those games, but they're mine, indefinitely, right, if

00:09:13.91
Jaime G
You own nothing.

00:09:26.53
Tony Sisk
you can't choose your subscription with your game pass. I mean, like if I cancel mine, which I did, i did cancel it.

00:09:38.73
Tony Sisk
um

00:09:39.95
Jaime G
you own nothing

00:09:40.21
Tony Sisk
I have no games. I have nothing, nothing. So I'm going to drop $360 year. and a year And even most, a lot of games now are, you know, we complain about the really expensive games, but a lot of games have been dropping it's fifty in this new, like mid-tier, you know, $50 range.

00:10:02.65
Tony Sisk
That's a lot of games that you could have owned. Right? So,

00:10:07.82
Jaime G
Tony, games are dropping now for like 70 bucks.

00:10:12.08
Tony Sisk
there are But there are games, if you look, there are games that you can buy for about $50 that are coming from smaller studios.

00:10:19.09
Jaime G
ah Right, right. I mean,

00:10:21.84
Tony Sisk
They're not backed by these mega studios and stuff, but games that

00:10:24.98
Jaime G
right. Expedition 33, Team Cherry with Silksong. Right. Good point.

00:10:29.85
Tony Sisk
Right. So you can have those games. Even if you didn't buy them in physical copy, you bought the digital version, it would still be your game. But with if you're going to full subscription model and you're only relying on the subscription model,

00:10:45.77
Tony Sisk
then when you cancel and this is where they've got their hooks in the people like okay but then i'm not going to have anything to play at all because i haven't been buying games i've been just relying on the subscription model to support my gaming so you're basically starting from from scratch if you want to you know go back and play something again right i don't own that game anymore

00:10:56.50
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:11:15.80
Tony Sisk
Right? And which leads me to the question like Call of Duty. Like, Call Duty, you know, 6 Black Ops 6.

00:11:28.87
Tony Sisk
It dropped last year and Game Pass.

00:11:33.40
Tony Sisk
I never bought any skins. But do people actually buy the skins when they don't actually own the game?

00:11:43.70
Jaime G
No.

00:11:43.71
Tony Sisk
This is...

00:11:46.22
Sentfrmheaven
like the the people that buy the skins I want to say more than likely they're some type of content creator or streamer so like their supporters are buying the skins but like for your everyday people if they do buy skin it's because maybe they want a particular like gun like so the uh some machine gun the LCD 10 drop But instead of you, like, getting out the battle pass, so one, you have to pay for the battle pass.

00:12:16.97
Sentfrmheaven
And then not only do pay for the battle pass, you have you know, play the game to get certain, to get the tokens up to get to that level.

00:12:25.44
Tony Sisk
Right

00:12:25.67
Sentfrmheaven
But if you spend $20, then you can just go ahead and get the LCD 10, however it's, you know, like, with attachments or whatever like that.

00:12:33.79
Tony Sisk
Right Well back, you know, we bought I bought Call Duty every year on PlayStation So I own the game

00:12:35.11
Sentfrmheaven
so So, yeah, that's that. but But that's only, like, you know, one or two guns or whatever like that.

00:12:50.24
Tony Sisk
And I bought skins, right? i would there would I would buy like one skin a year, all right? And i I own that skin. and So if I go, i can go throw him ah that copy of Call Duty and the skin should still be there, right?

00:13:08.20
Tony Sisk
So last year, i did not buy Call Duty because why? It was on Game Pass, all right? So... I played Call Duty last year and I earned enough COD points or whatever where I could buy, you you know, some cheap skin or something like that.

00:13:30.99
Tony Sisk
keep A cheap weapon skin or something with my COD points.

00:13:37.07
Tony Sisk
But then I canceled my Game Pass subscription.

00:13:42.05
Tony Sisk
in order, I mean, I don't have anything. I have to go buy Call of Duty again. i actually have to buy Call Duty if I want my, the stuff I spent my COD points on.

00:13:48.20
Jaime G
If you want to play, yeah.

00:13:53.51
Tony Sisk
But what if I had spent my real money on it? Like, like, you're kind of putting the cart before the horse, right? Like, I don't actually own this car. ah But it's like, like, so how many, my so my question was, my question is like,

00:14:11.03
Tony Sisk
How many people do you think actually, if they actually put their mo ah thoughts into it, like, well, I don't own this game. Am I going to buy skins for it?

00:14:22.76
Tony Sisk
Because if I decide to cancel, what would have been the point? Go ahead, Ami.

00:14:27.75
Jaime G
so so So there's the this ah story that was shared at the World Economic Forum. You will own nothing and be happy.

00:14:41.45
Jaime G
It's been taken out of context. it People are like thinking like, oh, you know this is the Trump agenda, whatever. But there was a story that that basically says you will own nothing and be happy.

00:14:54.52
Jaime G
That's it. you You won't own the games.

00:14:55.35
Tony Sisk
Right. Well, even even i think like but games that you own outright, even when you buy like skins or digital items and stuff like that, I mean, and do you truly own those or do the gaming companies still have rights to those items?

00:15:18.64
Tony Sisk
They could just cancel, delete them.

00:15:21.76
Sentfrmheaven
yeah they Yeah, they have rights to the items.

00:15:21.78
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you, yeah.

00:15:26.42
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, because I'm...

00:15:27.58
Jaime G
There was, there was an interesting discussion that came up earlier this year where there was a game that launched that had like no, ah no gameplay, no nothing unless it was all online.

00:15:42.83
Jaime G
And people were like upset when the game flopped and they shut down the servers in like four months. And people were like, wait, like, I bought the game. I should be able to play this game.

00:15:55.75
Jaime G
And they're like, sorry.

00:15:58.42
Tony Sisk
But that's a pretty common thing, right? That's a pretty... Like, didn't Sony try to shut down their PSP store or something like that?

00:16:10.37
Jaime G
They did.

00:16:10.63
Sentfrmheaven
yeah

00:16:11.01
Jaime G
and And the fans, me included, revolted. And they're like, no. i have i I still want to hold on to those five PSP digital games that I have.

00:16:22.97
Tony Sisk
but real Because they're yours. You paid for them.

00:16:25.98
Jaime G
No, they were on PS Plus, man.

00:16:28.40
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:16:28.48
Tony Sisk
oh

00:16:30.68
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, see, it didn't...

00:16:30.77
Tony Sisk
But people would have bought digital copies. It would it would have been theirs.

00:16:33.40
Jaime G
Yeah, there were there were people who did.

00:16:36.52
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, because it's... So, the beta dropped on... Friday, I think, which was the third or so the second. um So when it dropped or whatever like that, you had to watch Call of Duty's Twitch page for little over an hour to get certain things like your own digital scans, banners, whatever.

00:17:00.83
Sentfrmheaven
But one of the big things was beta code. So I ended up getting three beta codes and I tried to give them away. Guess how many I gave away?

00:17:12.06
Tony Sisk
you didn't give one to me, so zero.

00:17:14.16
Sentfrmheaven
zero zero because uh it it released on the fifth for everybody to play but the biggest issue was that a lot of people like you say antony they're playing warzone warzone is free so like they have no interest the multiplayer stuff whatever like that because it's like you know i'm i'm only going to get in the free version of the game so

00:17:14.75
Jaime G
and

00:17:38.17
Sentfrmheaven
And that's like been like my biggest argument with Call of Duty. The reason why I feel like people put up with the hackers and stuff so much is because it's a free game. But if it's like, hey, you have to pay this and you can lose this because look at all the streamers that are getting in trouble. And then God is coming in and taking all their stuff that they paid for.

00:17:58.75
Sentfrmheaven
You know, so it's like you you don't own it. You're just literally, you know, you're just borrowing some type of space.

00:18:02.95
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:18:05.20
Sentfrmheaven
But yeah, but if they want to, they can come in, take it and be like, hmm, tough loss.

00:18:12.80
Tony Sisk
Right. But even like games like Fortnite and stuff like that, that's just that's true there too. And i've I've bought a lot of skins on Fortnite.

00:18:24.07
Tony Sisk
That's just, I guess, you know, one day it's all going to go away.

00:18:30.83
Tony Sisk
Just like my physical edition of Fortnite

00:18:30.86
Sentfrmheaven
yeah and

00:18:30.95
Jaime G
yeah

00:18:33.65
Jaime G
I know we've talked about this.

00:18:36.14
Tony Sisk
that somebody ran off with. I don't know who that person was.

00:18:38.72
Sentfrmheaven
that's crazy that's crazy right yeah you know and then you know just like you know like you know we were talking they said that they potentially lost 300 million with uh you know call of duty being on um

00:18:41.55
Jaime G
if youre If you're listening to this episode, Tony will hunt you down.

00:18:58.58
Sentfrmheaven
Game Pass. Ain't no everybody I run it into Xbox. Hey, you know, ah are you happy with Game Pass? No, not even a little bit. Not even close. Like, like ah there's not one good thing I've been hearing about, you know, them and Game Pass and a price increase and, like, the products that's been offered.

00:19:19.88
Jaime G
Man, oh, man, this is is interesting. So people who have Game Pass aren't really like super happy with it. I mean, OK, is this a desperate attempt here from Xbox to make up some money where they can?

00:19:39.83
Tony Sisk
It's a, okay. So your your question is basically, what why are they increasing the price when they know they're getting destroyed online on all the YouTube channels?

00:19:42.11
Jaime G
absolutely And I'm saying desperate.

00:19:53.00
Tony Sisk
I've not, every single, even their staunchest Xbox guys i

00:20:01.08
Jaime G
our our Our jumping ship yeah

00:20:03.11
Tony Sisk
are jumping ship or just incredibly mad. So why? like They had to know that this was was going to be the reaction. mean,

00:20:14.23
Tony Sisk
i mean yeah

00:20:14.48
Jaime G
in.

00:20:15.78
Tony Sisk
go ahead.

00:20:16.92
Jaime G
Can I throw a little bit of a wrench here? wait Microsoft, Xbox, the gaming division, where are they going to make up sales from?

00:20:28.66
Jaime G
Consoles? and subscriptions, right? And games, for sure, okay? Games, there's a cap on how much they can charge for them because they have to basically charge whatever the going rate is compared to like the other other two.

00:20:46.88
Jaime G
Consoles, man, have you realized that if you own an Xbox console for the latest series, it was an investment, right?

00:20:58.47
Jaime G
Because they've actually increased their price, not once, but twice in one year for their consoles.

00:21:00.00
Tony Sisk
ah

00:21:05.35
Tony Sisk
What was the original price of the Xbox Series X when it came released in 2020 $4.99 What is the price now?

00:21:12.44
Jaime G
$499. And in May, it went up to $599.

00:21:14.97
Tony Sisk
what is the price now

00:21:17.36
Jaime G
And right now, it's going for $650. Okay. and right now it's gone for six fifty

00:21:25.38
Tony Sisk
i mean I'll sell you my Xbox Series X for $500.

00:21:25.81
Sentfrmheaven
That's insane.

00:21:25.94
Jaime G
okay

00:21:28.06
Tony Sisk
All

00:21:29.18
Jaime G
Well, that's the thing. like That's what I'm saying. like

00:21:31.29
Sentfrmheaven
Mine too.

00:21:31.62
Jaime G
That's what I'm saying. Okay. Xbox at this point probably said, we're not going to make any more money on the console. Right? Because most times the the console makers lose money on their consoles, but they make they make money for like the games and subscriptions and stuff that they sell.

00:21:50.79
Tony Sisk
right They get a percentage of everything that you buy on their console.

00:21:55.58
Jaime G
Right. So But right now they're saying, okay, for every single console that we make, let's make sure we're getting every single penny that we can. All right.

00:22:06.24
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:22:07.76
Jaime G
So the price increase for their console, I think, is a sign of, you know, they know they're going out from the console stuff. So where else can they make up the money? Hey, we've got this this service that we're charging $20 a user for right now.

00:22:29.27
Jaime G
Let's see if we can get $10 out of every user. Right? You've got, I don't know, you've got a million subscribers, you get $10 off of them extra every month.

00:22:35.06
Tony Sisk
Mm-hmm.

00:22:42.81
Jaime G
Guess what? you're just You just made up $10 million. dollars

00:22:48.07
Jaime G
I hope that the community says, I'm going to drop my subscription until Xbox does something different. Because if a lot of people do cancel it, guess what? They will they will listen.

00:23:03.36
Jaime G
her Once you start, you know, not putting money in their pockets, they will listen.

00:23:09.72
Sentfrmheaven
Right. I think the biggest sub thing they should ah this is not buy the handheld. Because the handheld hasn't released yet, right?

00:23:17.81
Jaime G
but No, it hasn't. But at the same time, the handheld, is, in my opinion, a great way for Xbox to say, we don't care.

00:23:29.20
Jaime G
Because the handheld is made by, what is it?

00:23:35.24
Tony Sisk
Rob LX. It's an Asus machine.

00:23:38.81
Jaime G
Right, it's the it's made by Asus. So the console, the hardware is theirs.

00:23:42.86
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:23:44.15
Jaime G
The software is Microsoft's.

00:23:46.98
Tony Sisk
Right, yeah. It's not actual Xbox product.

00:23:48.50
Sentfrmheaven
right Yeah, but do you think by this price increase and if people don't buy do you think I guess like from ACES standpoint, that's like you sabotage because you know, like you increase the price because it's supposed to hand-to-hand.

00:24:03.78
Jaime G
yeah

00:24:10.10
Sentfrmheaven
I'm supposed to able to turn this thing on and run my Game Pass games flawless, but you're not giving me

00:24:14.01
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:18.48
Sentfrmheaven
Like, there's not a game on there that I want to spend $1,000 on a computer to play.

00:24:23.77
Jaime G
Right. I mean, if you're spending that much money, man, why not just just make Yeah.

00:24:31.74
Tony Sisk
Well, some people are i mean, there's a lot of reasons why PC is not an option for a lot of people. PC is not an option for me because, one, I don't have a spot for for it except my laptop. And then

00:24:50.03
Tony Sisk
I get addicted to PC games. So I'm not allowed to play PC games.

00:24:54.46
Jaime G
and so So so you you have a pocket of purists that like that are like, PC games rule.

00:25:01.03
Tony Sisk
Right. So I don't know. It was like a handheld I have no problem with. Right. But a big PC, months you know, rig and stuff, my wife would not go for that.

00:25:14.04
Tony Sisk
So. um

00:25:17.54
Tony Sisk
um

00:25:18.31
Jaime G
Spoken and like a true married man.

00:25:20.04
Tony Sisk
Right. So, you know, that's not option.

00:25:22.37
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, well, that makes sense.

00:25:22.89
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:25:25.41
Sentfrmheaven
oh um Audience, I don't remember if y'all remember when we went to Boston and Tony won that PC, but we had already left. He got the call for that ah that PC from the booth.

00:25:38.40
Sentfrmheaven
What booth was that we went to? um

00:25:40.77
Tony Sisk
aces

00:25:42.17
Sentfrmheaven
there you go aces yeah yeah aces yeah we had left yeah we had left but he did win the pc ah okay see full circle all right

00:25:45.39
Jaime G
I don't want your your hardware.

00:25:54.05
Tony Sisk
yeah but i don't know i make i agree vance like

00:26:01.73
Tony Sisk
This wasn't something on the radar when this deal we first came in the, in the being, right?

00:26:06.96
Jaime G
No.

00:26:07.25
Tony Sisk
It's like, this is something new. ah This price increases something new because something has changed ah at Microsoft headquarters.

00:26:17.75
Tony Sisk
And that is investors are asking, where's my return on investment? Right? Like we keep dumping all this money into you, into you. And it's not hitting.

00:26:32.65
Tony Sisk
like Like when you're buying and Microsoft, you're buying Microsoft stock for everything that Microsoft does. So right now I feel like ah with the AI competition that's going on on now, it's a space race in AI.

00:26:46.39
Tony Sisk
I almost feel like Microsoft is a little bit behind in that regard because I hear a lot of news from like Meta and and some of the other open AI and other companies that have jumped into the AI race.

00:27:03.96
Tony Sisk
Even Apple, which nothing was coming from Apple on it for a while, I think. They just recently announced getting into it you know, Google is one of the leading companies in it.

00:27:15.47
Tony Sisk
Microsoft,

00:27:19.16
Tony Sisk
I see their AI stuff, you know, on the windows 11 or whatever, but it feels like they're really gearing up to allocate all resources to this new field that is supposedly going to make, you know, us technology companies even richer.

00:27:41.08
Tony Sisk
And, um, so the question is like, We need all resources to be operating at peak, bringing in as much money because these data centers are are not cheap that they have to build.

00:27:57.08
Tony Sisk
And all this researching

00:27:59.13
Jaime G
Oh, they are not.

00:28:00.43
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:28:00.86
Jaime G
don't

00:28:01.80
Tony Sisk
all this research and development and utility costs and just everything is not cheap. So any underperforming divisions, you have to increase your um your profit.

00:28:16.55
Tony Sisk
You have to improve. And Microsoft has been losing um or Xbox has been losing to Sony for ah few years now.

00:28:29.16
Tony Sisk
They're starting to make gains.

00:28:29.22
Jaime G
a few ah few generations now.

00:28:31.26
Tony Sisk
ah Yeah, they're starting to make gains in software development, right? Like we've said before in multiple episodes, you know, so Microsoft is headed the direction of a software developer instead of a hardware maker.

00:28:46.18
Tony Sisk
So... Yeah, I think that, you know, they've they've been asked to bring in more funds to drive their AI revolution. So.

00:28:56.73
Jaime G
but But here's the tough pill that's that's that's at least hard for me to swallow. Up until a couple weeks ago, remember, I wast i was like debating, like, hey, I'm going to get an Xbox console.

00:29:10.67
Jaime G
the day The day that I went to bought one, I saw a Switch, and I was like, ooh, I just picked it up.

00:29:10.69
Tony Sisk
hmm.

00:29:19.16
Jaime G
This is the hard thing that's that's really hard for me to swallow. Xbox... is milking their most loyal players. Because neither of these activities, raising the the console price, increasing the cost of Game Pass, partnering with with somebody who's launching like a really expensive handheld, okay?

00:29:31.57
Tony Sisk
none.

00:29:44.78
Jaime G
Where does any of those three moves invite newer players to say, let me jump in into Xbox?

00:29:52.62
Tony Sisk
but had none

00:29:52.92
Jaime G
i I hear what you're saying. and i and i And part of me agrees with that. Like they're trying to say, like, how do we bring more money, right? Oh, I've got a loyal loyal a loyal fan base here.

00:30:07.48
Jaime G
Let me take them for every cent that I can.

00:30:12.20
Tony Sisk
That's because they have, they have the, these companies don't make decisions on feelings. They make decisions based on numbers, on analytics, on surveys.

00:30:23.60
Tony Sisk
I bet people have filled out surveys about what they would do. you know, what kind of, would you consider paying more for this product? You know, whatever. up They've done the the market analysis and they've probably determined, yeah, we'll lose quite a few people that'll be mad, but the people that will be left,

00:30:43.15
Tony Sisk
we can get more money out of and they'll be fine with it because they have the purchasing power where it's not significant for them.

00:30:48.54
Jaime G
ah suck somebody's done an algorithm and say even though we might lose some players a lot of people are going to stay and we will still come up ahead

00:31:01.70
Tony Sisk
Yeah, people are still like everybody that's screaming right now about, oh, Xbox, Xbox, you know, you betray, you know betray your players and stuff.

00:31:10.43
Jaime G
x Xbox got me

00:31:10.51
Tony Sisk
We're the same people. We're the same people six months ago, six months ago were saying that they were done with Xbox. OK, well, you you you were done with Xbox since six months ago. Then why are you here today shouting about I'm done with Xbox?

00:31:28.99
Tony Sisk
Because obviously you weren't done with Xbox.

00:31:31.07
Jaime G
Clearly they ain't done with Xbox.

00:31:33.02
Tony Sisk
Right. And six months from now, you'll still be making videos. You'll still be making YouTube videos and and and talking about the next Xbox game or whatever.

00:31:44.00
Tony Sisk
Because you they've they've got their hooks into you. They know it. The next price increase is coming.

00:31:52.94
Tony Sisk
And then we'll go through the whole cycle again. I'm like, you just have to make a decision based on your own on your own situation and pick whatever.

00:31:57.16
Sentfrmheaven
and but you know it's crazy though

00:32:02.72
Tony Sisk
What type of gamer you want to be?

00:32:05.56
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:32:06.04
Sentfrmheaven
yeah yeah because i mean like you know to to to go back on your point but it's crazy because the people now are money hungry because i think the people who originally like started this wasn't like hey like i wanna you know like start beating people over the head like it like i i really do think a lot of companies have good intentions but something i just thought about tony while you were talking do you know there's a good amount of people that have both consoles and one is just collecting dust

00:32:41.11
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:32:41.46
Jaime G
Yes.

00:32:41.84
Sentfrmheaven
like like there's there's a lot a lot of people so it's like You think about it with the gaming and we're like, hey, $30, that's crazy. But every year they come out with phones, that's $200 more.

00:32:54.72
Sentfrmheaven
That's $200 more. That's $200 more. Because I think the iPhone 17 just came out and that's what like, almost like what, six, there it is. See, there it is.

00:33:03.84
Tony Sisk
yeah ah

00:33:04.97
Sentfrmheaven
There's people. Hey, hey, mean, hey, the ultra. So, so We're going to spend the money.

00:33:15.74
Sentfrmheaven
They know that. Yes, we're going to be upset, but just what you said, we're going to spend money. We're going to be back. We're going to cry, kick, drag, but we're going to be here.

00:33:26.83
Sentfrmheaven
And if I'm Xbox people, I'm coming to Sony. ah I'm leaving Xbox and I'm coming to Sony. The writing on the wall for me was when they dropped the new console, no new accessories.

00:33:40.03
Sentfrmheaven
I said, hold on, so there's no new controllers, new headsets? They say, no. We're just giving you the Series X. We're giving you the Series S, the console. No new accessories. And I'm like, yeah, y'all don't yeah don't care about your fan base at all. Like, no, like, y'all don't even care about the product.

00:34:07.25
Tony Sisk
Did I lose audio?

00:34:10.41
Sentfrmheaven
and No, I just stopped talking. They

00:34:12.55
Jaime G
Oh, ah um I'm here like, and don't care about the product.

00:34:15.56
Sentfrmheaven
left me hanging. They left me hanging this.

00:34:16.80
Tony Sisk
I thought you were still talking.

00:34:18.92
Sentfrmheaven
No.

00:34:19.19
Jaime G
Well, ah yeah, because because because you're still moving around like you're talking and I'm like, did I click on something wrong?

00:34:19.48
Tony Sisk
thought your head moving.

00:34:19.50
Sentfrmheaven
I was doing it.

00:34:20.20
Tony Sisk
You got the hat on.

00:34:26.18
Sentfrmheaven
Hey.

00:34:27.04
Tony Sisk
ah

00:34:27.34
Sentfrmheaven
Hey. I wish I was, hey, I wish was doing this. Y'all should have looked on your face. I'm just looking puzzled at the camera like, is somebody there? And Tony's looking like, what's going on?

00:34:34.89
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:34:36.32
Sentfrmheaven
I was like,

00:34:38.38
Jaime G
I really looked around like, Okay.

00:34:42.41
Sentfrmheaven
this is you This is terrible.

00:34:46.87
Jaime G
Hey, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened while we're recording, right?

00:34:46.94
Tony Sisk
Anyway. Hey, yeah. It would not bru lose the entire audio.

00:34:55.13
Jaime G
I mean, Vance has got a point. I mean, really, he does have a point. So, I mean, i'm interested to see the future of Xbox.

00:35:06.63
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:35:06.69
Jaime G
I mean, are they going to come back a year later and they're going to be like, record numbers.

00:35:10.83
Tony Sisk
Right. Like, for me personally, like, I canceled my Xbox subscription a long time ago. I re-upped it to play Expedition 33, right?

00:35:19.40
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:35:22.06
Tony Sisk
And then I canceled it again, right? That's my model. my My motto is I'll wait to some mega game drops that I'm really interested in that's going to cost $80 on Microsoft at the store or whatever, but I don't want to actually buy a Microsoft game because I don't buy Microsoft games because I'm a PlayStation guy.

00:35:46.94
Tony Sisk
But if there's a game I really want to play, I'll sign up one month of Game Pass for $30.

00:35:54.53
Jaime G
30 bucks.

00:35:57.28
Tony Sisk
Then I can play that game, be done with it, just like it did with Expedition 33. And then before the month is even up, cancel it and be done.

00:36:11.27
Tony Sisk
That's the pay. That's the model they've set up.

00:36:16.93
Tony Sisk
And that's how it is, you know? I'm like, okay. And this, again, never argued that Game Pass was a great value in the past. It could still be a great value. it is a detriment to both the, to the industry, right? Because Sony had to, to, to copy them, right? To, to, to say we offered the same sort of thing.

00:36:41.05
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:36:41.24
Jaime G
Sorta, yeah.

00:36:41.25
Tony Sisk
So now, huh? Right.

00:36:43.53
Jaime G
Yeah, sort right?

00:36:43.59
Tony Sisk
And then sort of, they don't offer day one drops.

00:36:44.71
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:36:46.92
Tony Sisk
Right. But, um, I mean,

00:36:48.72
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:36:53.07
Tony Sisk
the impact on develop game development and stuff. I don't know. I mean, who knows what kind of impact it has, but all I know is ever since this whole thing has happened, the gaming industry has just been kind of upside down, right? I don't know.

00:37:09.45
Tony Sisk
Is it part because of game pass? I don't know, but our messaging on this podcast has always been, it's a great value, but,

00:37:20.70
Tony Sisk
you don't know the negative impact that's going to coming down the line because of this, of this venture. And I think we are, we are seeing the fruits of this, that they put game, uh, uh, Cod on, um, game pass.

00:37:28.23
Jaime G
yeah

00:37:39.17
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Of course they lost sales. Who's going to buy Cod. I didn't buy Cod. It's on game pass. I'm paying subscribers for it. Why am I going to buy it?

00:37:47.42
Jaime G
it It hurt them though in the in the long run.

00:37:47.59
Tony Sisk
Right. So,

00:37:50.83
Tony Sisk
Yeah, so now they're talking about like it's not even going to be included in multiple tiers of Game Pass. And I'm not even sure it was included within the first year of Ultimate. I'm not sure.

00:38:02.90
Tony Sisk
It's confusing what they say. So um ah just buy it, guess. Just buy Game Pass on your preferred console and you don't have to worry about it. I mean, buy COD on your preferred console.

00:38:13.34
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, mean, yeah, I think I will say, i think the biggest benefit of Gang Pass is for parents with new gamers. So like my son, I bought him like, so I have the lowest tier for the PlayStation, but I bought my son the highest tier because that way, since he's new, he can play 100 games to really figure out what type of style of game that he likes.

00:38:42.98
Sentfrmheaven
If it's fighting, if it's role playing, if it's shooter, if it sports, racing, like go through the catalog and, you know, play your heart's desire. And then that way, I think once he started getting older, he'll start, you know, formulating to what he wants to do.

00:38:55.37
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:38:57.65
Sentfrmheaven
And I think Game Pass is a good like starter platform for that. Like if you have, you know, young kids that want to game.

00:39:07.53
Tony Sisk
Yeah, I mean, it it it works really well for, you know, like we were saying, if you have kids and you don't have the money to buy them all the games, a bunch of games, come it's a built-in library for them that can keep them, you know, entertained for a while and you could just have one account for you know, however many kids you got, whatever.

00:39:27.97
Tony Sisk
It's it still got its qualities, good qualities to it. But, you know, it's still like even like PS Plus. You know, the best gaming catalog out of both both ah what PlayStation offers and what Game Pass offers is my own PS Plus collection.

00:39:47.21
Tony Sisk
Because I've been a PlayStation gamer long enough now. ah have hundreds of games.

00:39:53.17
Jaime G
Oh, yeah.

00:39:53.44
Tony Sisk
Hundreds. And that's like, man, that's a great benefit because I, not only because I've been loyal, a loyal PlayStation customer and, and have PS plus, they give it a three, three free games a month, sometimes more.

00:40:10.28
Jaime G
Sometimes more.

00:40:11.76
Tony Sisk
yeah so my personal ps plus library is gigantic like so you know i i don't know if xbox offers that they they used to have something similar i think where they would give like a game out a month or whatever but i don't i don't know if they still do that or not but but uh

00:40:17.91
Jaime G
Yep.

00:40:34.96
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, think they might, you know, like put like a, a like ah you know, like a major title on there once in a while to make it, you because now they have it ah like so I was on there last night and they have it like what's leaving Game Pass, what's coming to Game Pass, you know, so I mean, I mean like, like yeah.

00:40:53.73
Tony Sisk
well yeah they they they cycle out like 13 games a month or something like that but like you never there's like but the ps plus games that you save to your personal library and playstation those never get cycled out though every once in a while one will disappear because some sort of

00:41:07.67
Jaime G
Right.

00:41:13.80
Jaime G
ah ps PS Plus will stay in your library and do really well, but the catalog is the one that disappears.

00:41:22.25
Tony Sisk
the catalog rotates, but your personal collection for the most part stays there forever.

00:41:29.01
Jaime G
Yeah, no, I agree.

00:41:29.21
Tony Sisk
I've seen one or two games that have left there because of some sort of contract dispute with the developers whatever. um

00:41:37.75
Jaime G
That's the exception rather than the norm here.

00:41:38.13
Tony Sisk
i mean but if But when you, in your subscription with PS Plus, you lose that library. But if you re-up, you get the library back. So it's kind of, that's nice.

00:41:47.39
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:41:49.23
Tony Sisk
Like, okay, I can't afford to play. i don't want to pay PS Plus for a while. You can cancel it and then come back to it later and still get your original library back. That's great. So that just means that your library continues to grow.

00:42:02.55
Tony Sisk
So... you know You know, it's the day one drops, both third party and first party is what made ultimate Game Pass Ultimate, whatever. I don't know what it's called now. They changed the names.

00:42:16.12
Tony Sisk
um That's what was really nice about Game Pass is getting those day one drops for third party games. ah games like Expedition 33 that's not an Xbox studio um but they offered it as a day one drop that's really great that's where I played Expedition 33 so and then I canceled my subscription

00:42:38.59
Jaime G
And then you cancel your subscription.

00:42:44.97
Tony Sisk
I don't know do they realize they have this big huge loop hole in their service like

00:42:50.42
Jaime G
They do, man. They do. And you know what? there's there's There's probably a database that says Tony, when he re-upped his subscription, he only played this one game.

00:43:04.23
Jaime G
less Let's figure out why.

00:43:04.60
Tony Sisk
Oh, I'm sure.

00:43:07.64
Sentfrmheaven
We know why. didn't want to spend the 80.

00:43:11.91
Jaime G
yeah

00:43:11.90
Tony Sisk
and Well, it's been 80. But what's so funny is like I like Expedition 33 enough that I would like to have a physical copy on the PlayStation. Not on the Xbox.

00:43:22.46
Jaime G
ha

00:43:23.26
Tony Sisk
On the PlayStation. and Even though I didn't even play it on the PlayStation.

00:43:25.36
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:43:28.06
Tony Sisk
So.

00:43:29.67
Jaime G
I got my physical copy, man.

00:43:32.47
Tony Sisk
Yeah, I know you did.

00:43:34.70
Jaime G
After waiting for like, yeah.

00:43:34.95
Tony Sisk
Which is the way to go. is is It's the way to go.

00:43:40.00
Jaime G
ah yeah

00:43:41.10
Tony Sisk
Yeah, it's nice going upstairs and seeing my stack of games, you know, my PS5 games all sitting there on the counter.

00:43:41.69
Jaime G
so

00:43:42.58
Sentfrmheaven
you

00:43:49.38
Tony Sisk
Like, ooh, which one do I want to play?

00:43:51.85
Jaime G
so so So really, what do you think is going to happen?

00:43:56.50
Jaime G
Is Xbox going to do a reversal on this?

00:43:56.66
Tony Sisk
What's going to happen?

00:43:59.17
Jaime G
Or goingnna are they going to stand firm and say, 30 bucks?

00:44:00.14
Tony Sisk
No. No, they're not reversing it. Why would they reverse it? reversing it would mean stay

00:44:07.42
Jaime G
I mean, if it starts...

00:44:08.91
Tony Sisk
but Reversing would mean staying at the status quo, which is obviously ah where they have a problem with. Their status quo isn't working for their plan. And they're just not going to change that plan because their customers are throwing a fit.

00:44:19.71
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:44:27.22
Tony Sisk
They're you're going to go forward with the fan plan. That's what the data says. The data says continue with the plan.

00:44:32.04
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:44:37.22
Tony Sisk
you know, that's what they do.

00:44:38.03
Jaime G
OK, man.

00:44:40.43
Tony Sisk
And what's going to end the, then, and

00:44:41.51
Jaime G
We're going to be down to two console manufacturers pretty soon.

00:44:45.44
Tony Sisk
maybe I think Xbox, even though the rumor is that they're going to not do manufacturing of hardware, I, I still think that there there'll be some sort of partnership because they're still going to want to,

00:45:03.21
Tony Sisk
There's a still part of them that say, okay, we still have this super, super loyal following that will pay premium prices. So those are the people we want to cater to.

00:45:12.02
Jaime G
yeah and Yeah.

00:45:15.29
Tony Sisk
We want to cater to the people that will pay premium prices. They will have something for those players. The handheld is something for those players and

00:45:24.87
Jaime G
Now, Tony, that's that's a whole separate conversation that we haven't really unpacked. And I think you kind of hinted at this earlier in the week when we were texting each other.

00:45:37.56
Jaime G
Is gaming becoming very difficult from a pricing standpoint for your casual people.

00:45:45.31
Sentfrmheaven
Yes. Thousand percent.

00:45:49.89
Tony Sisk
Right. And it's not the only industry. It's not. um Everything is going this way. There's a. Everybody, everybody, what they've discovered since the pandemic.

00:46:06.38
Tony Sisk
um Is people want. Perks. They want to be treated like they're special, like they're a class above what they actually are. I may be middle-class.

00:46:18.56
Tony Sisk
You should be treating me as a first-class passenger, you know, or, or, you know, I deserve a suite.

00:46:22.38
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:46:24.87
Tony Sisk
I don't deserve just a budget room, you know, like, and they've convinced themselves of this. So they're going to pay the money to make them meet that self vision of themselves, especially, you know, for their families. Like,

00:46:43.98
Tony Sisk
I got, you know, Amy just went to Florida for a trip and she was going to stay with ah her friends down there on their boat. And then she told me that their boat had no bathroom on it because it was not working and that you would have to go to the marina bathroom to use the bathroom.

00:46:53.62
Jaime G
yeah

00:47:01.22
Tony Sisk
And I said, ah no, I will pay for you a hotel room and it'll be a nice one at a resort you'll have your own rental car and blah, blah.

00:47:14.87
Tony Sisk
You are, I'm not, no. You're not going to sleep somewhere, live somewhere where there's no bathroom, where you have to get up in the middle of the night and walk across a marina you've never been to to go to a bathroom?

00:47:26.45
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:47:26.54
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:47:27.15
Tony Sisk
Seriously? No way.

00:47:27.87
Sentfrmheaven
Right. and

00:47:29.23
Tony Sisk
Like, and even in advance, you see it in our own industry. And, i you know, the shift to premium. Like, there are no more free bags.

00:47:41.43
Tony Sisk
Got to pay for them. No more ah choosing your own seats. You got to pay for it. Right? Because people want to pay for upgraded perks. It's a status.

00:47:55.43
Tony Sisk
It's a status. Hey, folks, you guys all sitting in the back? I got this nice roomier seat up here. um Honey, aren't you glad we're not sitting back there?

00:48:03.28
Jaime G
Well, I don't know if people if people want to pay for it.

00:48:03.58
Tony Sisk
Like, yeah.

00:48:08.18
Jaime G
I think people

00:48:10.29
Tony Sisk
Oh, people will be willing to pay. That's why, yeah.

00:48:13.22
Sentfrmheaven
ah yeah Yeah, because you figure everything luxury, like people don't talk about the luxury or something. They always talk about the price tag.

00:48:24.33
Sentfrmheaven
Like my Louis Vuitton bag or my Birkin bag. It's like, this is what I paid for it. My car, this is what I paid for it. like So it's like, people want you to know that they paid a lot for whatever perk they're getting.

00:48:37.06
Sentfrmheaven
They don't care about the perk.

00:48:37.10
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:48:37.82
Sentfrmheaven
They care about the price.

00:48:39.67
Tony Sisk
it's everywhere in our society, dude, like people posting pictures on social media about look at this, you Airbnb I'm at, it's a rooftop, you know, with ah a view of downtown, whatever, you know, that has all these extra people.

00:48:54.11
Tony Sisk
It's people want those perks. They want to feel like they're being, they're special.

00:49:00.99
Jaime G
i I'm the guy who who who doesn't want to pay extra.

00:49:01.06
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:49:04.54
Jaime G
I want the free check back. i don't

00:49:07.46
Tony Sisk
Right. Yeah. yeah Yeah, there's a lot of people that are in that category.

00:49:09.62
Jaime G
what why Why am I not being catered to?

00:49:15.58
Tony Sisk
Does it make you want to pay more?

00:49:18.05
Jaime G
No, I don't want to pay more.

00:49:18.21
Tony Sisk
Do you want to be catered to?

00:49:19.45
Jaime G
That's the thing.

00:49:20.37
Tony Sisk
Well, then they're not going worry about you then. They'll continue to cater to the people that are going to pay. There's enough people that it will pay. There's enough people.

00:49:31.33
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:49:31.43
Jaime G
People, what is is wrong with you?

00:49:36.02
Tony Sisk
The cause for boycott, the you know, boycotts don't work.

00:49:36.13
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, that's why.

00:49:38.38
Tony Sisk
Why? Because not everybody cares.

00:49:42.42
Jaime G
Boycotts.

00:49:44.24
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:49:44.31
Jaime G
Dude, you know what?

00:49:44.30
Tony Sisk
Yeah, people, hey you know what? You boycott, I'm still going to go.

00:49:48.93
Jaime G
there There should be more. we We should have more gamers. we We just make sense.

00:49:59.38
Sentfrmheaven
Well, that's an enough.

00:49:59.61
Tony Sisk
Gamers, yeah. Hey, I'm not buying this unless it's $2.00.

00:50:01.23
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

00:50:04.27
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:50:04.77
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right.

00:50:07.17
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:50:11.23
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, but you know what?

00:50:11.33
Jaime G
If I just wait three months, they'll drop it 50%.

00:50:15.15
Tony Sisk
But think about it, if you've, if there's, what is it? 25 gamers that pay that are only willing to pay $2 for a copy of a game, but you have one gamer that's willing to pay $50 for the game.

00:50:33.02
Tony Sisk
Who are you better off with? The 25 gamers that you have to make 25 copies of the game for?

00:50:36.17
Sentfrmheaven
That one game run.

00:50:39.51
Jaime G
but the

00:50:40.62
Tony Sisk
Or the one gamer you only have to make one copy of the game for?

00:50:40.83
Jaime G
The one gamer.

00:50:46.53
Jaime G
Well, good luck saying that you sold a ton of copies.

00:50:51.61
Jaime G
I know your point.

00:50:51.64
Tony Sisk
Yeah, well.

00:50:52.37
Jaime G
You youll only need to sell one.

00:50:54.92
Tony Sisk
I did this one.

00:50:57.34
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, because ah there's a place in New York that sells, I see like 12 burgers.

00:50:57.41
Tony Sisk
Right?

00:51:04.46
Sentfrmheaven
They only make 12 burgers a night of this specific burger. So yeah, I can sell these little sliders, but these 12 that I'm probably going to price like $60, $70 each, those are the home runs. Those are Grand Slams themselves.

00:51:22.21
Tony Sisk
Yep.

00:51:24.90
Tony Sisk
Yep. It's just, that's the way everything is nowadays. Like the people that pay that don't have a problem paying the extra are going to be catered to.

00:51:38.70
Tony Sisk
They're the ones that are actually driving the market stuff, not the masses.

00:51:39.44
Jaime G
i

00:51:42.02
Tony Sisk
The masses, you know, they don't count as much.

00:51:48.33
Sentfrmheaven
Mm-hmm. You know what? and Those people that pay extras are keeping the pawn shops open.

00:51:59.04
Sentfrmheaven
They pay extra till they can't.

00:52:02.07
Jaime G
Yeah, right.

00:52:02.36
Tony Sisk
Right. I mean, look ah you look in the board game and like, We don't talk a lot of board game, lot of board gaming. Some, but not a lot in that hobby.

00:52:14.26
Tony Sisk
Um, So you have the the the regular board games you can buy, the retail versions. They come with you know we'll take just any game. They'll come with like ah the board and then the cards and then the token pieces, which are typically cardboard with a little print you know like a screen printing on it, whatever that token is supposed to be.

00:52:39.68
Tony Sisk
Some regular black or red dice, you know, that you can buy anywhere.

00:52:45.22
Tony Sisk
That's a typical board game. Retail. Retail versions, $50 to $60, right? Or you can get the premium version of the board game.

00:52:57.16
Tony Sisk
Hand-carved wood tokens. You know, everything is... you know, imported from the Himalayan mountains, somewhere like that, you know, like, and you can go to a big board gaming convention and you can throw that sucker out on the table and you're going to be surrounded by a hundred people an hour asking me, man, where'd you get that game?

00:53:09.70
Jaime G
But...

00:53:19.74
Tony Sisk
Where'd you get that version? Man, tell me, i mean, I would love to play on that board. Can I play with you? Or you could be the other guy at the next table with the regular version and nobody's going to stop and ask.

00:53:33.38
Tony Sisk
Right? This is what it is. Hey, and i i have premium versions of games, of board games. But I don't even have the biggest premium versions of some of these games that go for... Look, when me and Danny... I don't know if you know my friend Danny, but he went with me to Gen Con.

00:53:56.29
Tony Sisk
We went and... it it Vance, you know, going to convention in Boston. what that experience is like, right? You get to meet developers and and stuff like that and talk to them and stuff like that, right?

00:54:08.71
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:54:10.36
Tony Sisk
So we're there. We come on this booth and there's this game. It's called, um

00:54:20.13
Tony Sisk
it's a Viking game. I can't remember the name of it exactly. It came out about 15 years ago. And I've always wanted a copy of this game, but I've never pulled a trigger, right? And it's never been expensive. It's been like,

00:54:34.22
Tony Sisk
$45. All right. So it's like, Oh, I love this game. Um, I've played it a couple of times. was like, it's a good game. I would love out of cop this game. Well, this guy was one of the original developers of the game.

00:54:49.04
Tony Sisk
Right. And they had out on the table, a premium version. 15 year anniversary version or something like that.

00:54:59.46
Tony Sisk
Maybe 20 year anniversary version of this game. And it was premium components, dude. I mean, this is, this thing looks spectacular, right? It's like we couldn't, I'm like, I couldn't believe how good it looked.

00:55:14.32
Tony Sisk
This guy goes through the whole story about, you know, getting funding to recreate, ah to remake this game. And there's only going to be 100 copies available of this super premium edition.

00:55:31.10
Tony Sisk
And you can have one. If you get in on the crowdfunding right now, me a hunt give us a $100 deposit, you could have one of those 100 copies, right?

00:55:44.79
Tony Sisk
What's the retail version? What's the full price buy-in for that premium version? $1,500. fifteen hundred dollars

00:55:55.86
Tony Sisk
$1,500. That's what he wanted. And dude, he will sell out that. He will sell out that 15 for that, that one or copies at $1,500.

00:56:07.25
Tony Sisk
Now were you, were you, but some, but but there will be people that will pay

00:56:12.29
Sentfrmheaven
Not with me.

00:56:13.84
Jaime G
No, not with me.

00:56:14.09
Sentfrmheaven
with me. That is true. That's true.

00:56:19.67
Tony Sisk
that fifteen hundred dollars for that ya

00:56:24.69
Tony Sisk
So

00:56:25.31
Jaime G
wow

00:56:25.71
Sentfrmheaven
that is that is true mr true

00:56:30.68
Tony Sisk
because you know, there's just this thing. It's like you roll it out at the, at the ah you know, and board games are different than video games, obviously.

00:56:41.63
Tony Sisk
it's it's It's physical. There's no, it's not, well, there are digital board games now, but it's mostly physical. So it's ah it's a it's iss almost almost ah ah a status symbol. It's a look at this beautiful game that I own and that you could play on, right?

00:57:01.23
Tony Sisk
It's just, it's next level. Um, what you want to call it? Showmanship or whatever. But yeah, but that's across everything, you know, cars, trucks, vacations, whatever.

00:57:19.89
Tony Sisk
Obviously as, uh, you know, Christians, we shouldn't be worried about that sort of thing, right? We should be content with what we have. But, you know, just like we talk about with our physical versions of our games, you know, we have a sense of pride in those those physical versions.

00:57:38.23
Jaime G
Yes.

00:57:38.51
Tony Sisk
these are There are people that are just taking it to a whole nother level, and that's what Microsoft is. going they they're they're not concerned about you know people being mad about the price increase because there's enough people out there worth $30 a month really I mean if you're serious on our system if you're serious about our games is $30 really that big a deal to you

00:57:48.56
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:58:04.01
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

00:58:05.96
Tony Sisk
give up something else don't give us up

00:58:06.55
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:58:08.83
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. right yeah

00:58:14.42
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, cause i mean because look at it. Look what the Steam Deck. Steam Deck was a $5 deposit.

00:58:21.62
Sentfrmheaven
That's it. And you're hooked. Oh, you got that email. It was, I got the email. Hey, did you get the email? Yeah, I got the email. And we were so excited to get that email. email And we bought it.

00:58:35.69
Sentfrmheaven
But we would have been chosen. We were people that was on the wait list like, man, you got one. Let me see it. Wow.

00:58:42.28
Tony Sisk
scarcity man scarcity is the thing people the marketers out there have discovered that scarcity sells it is like that's why they make arenas arenas don't so you know where they have big shows and stuff they don't want to put it ah show in a hundred thousand seat arena or something like that they want thirty thousand or less because they can get more for the tickets

00:58:42.30
Sentfrmheaven
Like you said. Showmanship, man.

00:59:10.72
Tony Sisk
And then people will turn and sell those tickets in the secondary market and drive the price up. And the price will be outrageous, right? Taylor Swift, $2,000 to go see Taylor Swift.

00:59:24.00
Tony Sisk
Who's going to pay that? Somebody is going to pay it. And then people are like, I got Taylor Swift tickets. ha Look at me. I'm special.

00:59:35.47
Tony Sisk
This is the whole marketing thing. Scarcity. is what sells.

00:59:43.46
Jaime G
Scarcity does sell. I agree. i thought I picked up a Switch 2 thinking it was going to be scarce and it's nothing but that. it's It's everywhere.

00:59:51.48
Tony Sisk
That is interesting too. Switch 2 has been available for in and by the purchase. There's no shortages.

00:59:57.36
Jaime G
No?

00:59:57.48
Sentfrmheaven
No shortages.

00:59:57.66
Tony Sisk
So it's that's interesting.

00:59:57.91
Jaime G
maybe maybe like the Maybe like the first days yet after came out.

00:59:59.02
Tony Sisk
That's interesting.

01:00:02.68
Tony Sisk
That's been totally, that's something that you don't usually run into in Nintendo products.

01:00:02.93
Jaime G
but then yeah

01:00:08.21
Jaime G
no

01:00:08.47
Tony Sisk
Nintendo has always been notoriously bad about not having stock.

01:00:15.34
Tony Sisk
It may, maybe it something to do with the tariffs and they just weren't sure about whether the supplies position was and they pre-stocked up a lot of the stuff. I don't know.

01:00:25.72
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, but you know what another thing probably people were like, the whole, you know, what this episode is about. Am I going to own my Nintendo Switch 2 game when I buy it?

01:00:38.44
Sentfrmheaven
Do I want to rent my games or, you know.

01:00:40.47
Jaime G
I have only purchased the games that came out for the original Nintendo Switch.

01:00:49.14
Sentfrmheaven
He bought it too. They'll play the one. I got you. I like it.

01:00:52.28
Tony Sisk
You've only bought, haven't bought any Switch 2 games? How many are there?

01:00:56.81
Jaime G
No, not not not Switch 2.

01:00:56.91
Tony Sisk
Like 10? 10? ten

01:00:58.96
Jaime G
I mean, Donkey Kong Bonanza, but I haven't bought it. I've only bought um the Mario Kart game that came with it.

01:01:10.41
Jaime G
My son wanted to play Super Mario Brothers Wii U. And what was the other one? Metroid Dread. I'm a Metroid fan. So this was like my opportunity to get back into it.

01:01:24.19
Jaime G
And Tony, before I forget, man, because I know we're probably going to be running out of time for this. I was working in Dallas two weeks ago. And you know, you've met Bandy Kit.

01:01:36.57
Jaime G
He's a listener.

01:01:37.57
Tony Sisk
Mm-hmm.

01:01:38.76
Jaime G
He collaborates in Discord every once in a while. a On Thursday that I was there and i was flying I was flying back on Friday, he just randomly pings me.

01:01:52.41
Jaime G
He's like, hey man, how's it going? I'm like, that's cool. I'm like, dude, I'm in Dallas. He's like, what? No way. I'm going to be in Dallas tomorrow, Friday. I'm like, dude, I'm flying back tomorrow. This would have been cool. He's like, I'm going to visit my friend Billy.

01:02:08.34
Jaime G
ah You know Billy.

01:02:09.98
Tony Sisk
Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:02:10.60
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, we know Billy.

01:02:10.62
Tony Sisk
They used to run the ah the tournament together.

01:02:12.25
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. Kumite.

01:02:14.49
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:02:14.61
Sentfrmheaven
Kumite.

01:02:14.60
Tony Sisk
Kumite.

01:02:15.31
Jaime G
so So he opened up a card shop and he sells cards and I think board games.

01:02:21.17
Tony Sisk
Beely does?

01:02:22.45
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:23.38
Tony Sisk
Oh, nice.

01:02:25.25
Jaime G
Yeah. So earlier when you said like people are selling board games, I was just like, oh, I got to remember to tell you about this.

01:02:26.24
Tony Sisk
Cool.

01:02:30.98
Jaime G
Reach out to him, say hi. And I wish him the best of luck. He just opened it up.

01:02:36.05
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, we got to have him on the ah got having one episode to talk about that. Because ah you know ah Charles Washington, Tony? You remember him from work?

01:02:45.27
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Big Yu-Gi-Oh player.

01:02:46.49
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, he opened up a shop. yeah Yep, yep, yep. He opened up a shop in Phoenix.

01:02:51.95
Tony Sisk
He did, really?

01:02:53.39
Sentfrmheaven
Yep.

01:02:53.45
Tony Sisk
That guy's funny.

01:02:54.13
Sentfrmheaven
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

01:02:57.14
Tony Sisk
Wow.

01:02:57.42
Jaime G
Well, there you go, man.

01:03:00.07
Tony Sisk
That's cool. We need to have both those guys on.

01:03:00.49
Jaime G
Sorry, I i know I went a completely different direction, man, but but i if I didn't say it, I was going to forget.

01:03:01.63
Tony Sisk
That would be pretty cool.

01:03:03.52
Sentfrmheaven
Yep. and

01:03:09.46
Tony Sisk
Oh, that's fun. I mean, it's good to hear that Billy was able to open the shop up. That'd be pretty cool to go check out. Yeah,

01:03:18.57
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:03:21.03
Tony Sisk
well, if I don't ever make it down to Dallas, I try to avoid that place.

01:03:26.31
Tony Sisk
Our company headquarters is down there.

01:03:26.85
Sentfrmheaven
yeah

01:03:29.47
Tony Sisk
I try to avoid it.

01:03:32.01
Jaime G
Hey, let's go, man.

01:03:33.24
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

01:03:33.41
Jaime G
I'll i'll hop on and a play with you guys and let's go for one weekend. and Yeah.

01:03:37.28
Tony Sisk
Yeah, right.

01:03:39.95
Tony Sisk
That'd pretty cool.

01:03:42.21
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:03:42.42
Tony Sisk
All right. Well, that's all i got. Anything else?

01:03:46.15
Jaime G
right. Xbox, it was nice knowing you. Me thinks you're on your way out.

01:03:53.66
Tony Sisk
Oh, no, there's still, there's still, there'll be Xbox, the software developer.

01:03:58.75
Jaime G
All right, console.

01:04:01.06
Tony Sisk
I mean, yeah. Maybe not consoles. And if they are any kind Xbox, there'll be Xbox branded consoles made in development with a, in a partnership, you know.

01:04:09.89
Jaime G
Yes.

01:04:12.61
Jaime G
Yes.

01:04:15.70
Jaime G
Yeah. The Sony Xbox machine.

01:04:19.73
Tony Sisk
Hey, I'm telling you, there's still that day.

01:04:19.99
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

01:04:22.16
Tony Sisk
Game Pass is coming to PlayStation. Right.

01:04:24.61
Jaime G
I'm telling you, I agree. OK, sorry.

01:04:27.03
Tony Sisk
and

01:04:27.53
Jaime G
All right.

01:04:30.08
Tony Sisk
right

01:04:30.45
Jaime G
So for listeners, if you guys want to hop in, we're going to be playing ah The Dark, what was it? Dark Pictures Anthology series.

01:04:40.94
Sentfrmheaven
Yes, Dark Picture.

01:04:41.24
Jaime G
We're all going to, yeah, we're going to be playing Little Hope. If y'all want to jump in, let us know what your playthrough was like. The Halloween episode is going to be focused around that. Let us know how youre how you' your run went and if you survived. Because last time, who was it?

01:04:59.53
Jaime G
Answer me. Who had like the less less number of survivors?

01:05:05.52
Tony Sisk
I think that was you, Jaime.

01:05:07.78
Jaime G
I think it was me.

01:05:07.80
Tony Sisk
I think you had the fewest.

01:05:09.42
Jaime G
Yes. Little hope.

01:05:10.93
Sentfrmheaven
Everybody getting whacked. Yeah. Yeah.

01:05:15.92
Tony Sisk
Yeah. But, yeah, ah that'll be fun. Let's see who's who who can lead their crew to through the the horrors of...

01:05:21.74
Jaime G
yes

01:05:28.14
Tony Sisk
What's ah what's what's the game we're calling?

01:05:30.66
Jaime G
little hope

01:05:31.71
Tony Sisk
The Little Hope. Yeah.

01:05:33.32
Sentfrmheaven
ro Yeah.

01:05:35.71
Tony Sisk
cool awesome right so the thanks again for all listeners out there that listen to us on a regular basis we really appreciate you guys uh listening in and giving us shout outs and supporting us whenever we see you guys we see a lot of you gay guys out in the community so just appreciate you for your support and uh you know catch us on the next episode i think uh the next episode i'd like to get into ghost of yotai

01:06:04.85
Tony Sisk
Right? I've already knocked out quite a bit of that game.

01:06:06.00
Sentfrmheaven
Go for your time.

01:06:07.56
Tony Sisk
So...

01:06:08.02
Jaime G
All right. All right.

01:06:09.64
Tony Sisk
Anyway, I'll catch you guys in the next episode. Bye.

01:06:12.46
Jaime G
See ya.

01:06:13.46
Sentfrmheaven
bla