The Evolution of PlayStation and Xbox Consoles Review

This week's Off the Cuff is a giant -sized episode

bringing you episodes 36 and 37. 36 contains

everything PlayStation from PlayStation 1, PlayStation

2, PlayStation 3, all the way up to the PlayStation

4. The reason 36 didn't make it out for November

14th is because I was too excited to go jump

in line to get my PlayStation 4. And then I didn't

feel like doing anything else that weekend except

for play with my PlayStation 4. There's a trend.

Episode 37 is everything to do with the Xbox,

including the launch of the Xbox and the Xbox

360 leading up to the Xbox One. So please enjoy

this giant size episode. Sit back, relax, and

enjoy the dulcet tones of the off -the -cuff

quartet. Hello and welcome to Off the Cuff episode

36. I am your host, Michael Powers. Joined with

me, with me this week is Art Danner. Hi. And

Joe Reed. Hello. And this week we are going to

be talking about the launch of the PlayStations.

You forgot somebody. Did I? You forgot somebody.

Who'd I forget? You forgot Sean. Oh, that's right.

It's the return of the Sean Not anymore. Bye

Welcome back guys. I'm taking my ball and I'm

going home. I'm taking my basketball and going

home funny story there was a moment Before we

started recording where Danner wasn't quite sure

he was going to be able to make it and Sean's

he was and I was like We're never gonna be able

to get you guys in the same episode again Not

saying me and Dan are the same person, but you've

never seen us in the same room. That's all I'm

saying. We haven't. Have not. Dan, your Sean's

impression is getting really good. Isn't it,

though? If by good you mean horrible, then yes.

Sounds pretty spot on this week. It does. I mean,

it's kind of hard to play a dual role. Yeah,

I've been working on it a lot, so. all right

so it's even to the point where i could talk

over myself yes i can okay so um this week uh

on friday the playstation 4 will be released

to north america um and by the time this episode

goes up i guess it would be the eve of the launch

so I thought we could talk about the past launches

of the PlayStation. I have a couple notes about

the games that were released with them, the dates,

pricing, stuff like that. But I was thinking

maybe we could, as we hit each one, maybe we

could share our first experiences with each system.

Maybe some of the things that we liked about

them and some of the things we didn't like about

them, or any other... just memorable stories

about them in general so and then maybe if we

have time we can go over some listener feedback

because there were quite a few comments on the

last episode which was our seventh gen console

awards so first up obviously was the playstation

it was released by sony in north america on september

9th 1995 for $299. First console to ship 100

million units in nine and a half years. In its

10 -year life cycle total, it shipped 102 million

units. The last unit sold in Christmas 2004.

For some reason, it doesn't seem like it's been

that long since the PlayStation was on. stopped

appearing on shelves, but I guess I never realized

when it when it did stop. There was a redesign

release for the PlayStation, which hit on September.

Oh, wait a minute. Oh, oh. That was bad. I'm

misreading my notes. Good job. As of September

30th, 2007, though, which keep in mind, the PlayStation

stopped hitting shelves in 2004. The games library

had reached seventy nine hundred games. Wow.

Good luck, collectors. Yeah, real quickly. How

many of you have played all 7900 games? No, sorry.

In one sitting or what? Yeah, I've probably played

50. Maybe. I don't know. Danner, how many do

you think you've played? Is he gone? No, I just

muted it and I forgot I did I'm talking good

job I was too busy working on my Sean's the impression

which I have to say is we're coming along pretty

well, I Don't like to pet myself on the back,

but but I can do it while drinking a cup of water

if I had to to to baby so I I want to say you've

probably played about Have 40 I don't think I've

played nearly as many as you have All right,

but so basically what we're saying is first of

all, we didn't know there were 7900 games for

the system and second Neither of us none of us

have played They were near to all those games.

It's basically what I'm getting out of this.

Um I'm concerned if you had yeah some of the

launch games when the when the PlayStation released

in 1995 um were among the list i'm just gonna

shoot down them here maybe we can just kind of

go over them if we actually played them um was

air combat um aquanauts holiday uh battle arena

toshinde um espn extreme games jumping flash

caliq the dna imperative um nba jam tournament

edition power serve 3d tennis the first Raymond

Ridge Racer Street Fighter the movie the riding

project totally clips turbo and zero divide Has

anyone here played any of these games or were

they did any of you have a PlayStation when it

launched? No, I did not have a PlayStation and

it does not sound like I played any of those

games Daner or did you mean I I played You can

play battle or what was battle read it to she's

a touch in day. Yeah, so she died to Shinden

it ends in den and that was though that would

probably So what was your what was your guys

first experience? With the PlayStation then I

know it sounds like none of us headed up when

it launched What was it about the PlayStation

that? Drew you to it or You know or turned you

off to it Joe, why don't you go ahead and start

us off here at the when the PlayStation 1 launched

I was a diehard Nintendo fan and you know, I

was a kid at the time and Not able to really

articulate why I didn't like things or why I

did like things and it was mostly out of that

I guess the Sega Nintendo battle really turned

me into a Nintendo fan because they encouraged

you to pick sides and so when The Sony dropped

I had no interest in it and the first time that

I played it. I was staying with my cousin at

his house and we went to the local video store

and rented one and The first game that I played

on that was... Oh, Schneike's Ice Cream Truck

Driving Combat. Twisted Metal. Twisted Metal

was the Twisted Metal game, and this was before

the DualShock had launched, and it just had the

D -Pad and the buttons, and I... Gosh, I don't...

Was this before or after the N64? I'm wondering

if I knew what the N64 graphics looked like when

I played this thing. Well, wasn't the N64 launched

in 1995? I think it did. I should know that.

I think it did. I think it launched the same

month, actually, as the PlayStation. Yeah, if

it launched at the same time, I had an N64 at

launch, and... I was smart enough to know that

the graphics on that system were hideous, and

I didn't too much care for the game at all, and

I don't think I spent too long with it. I know

we rented two games, but the other one is so

completely forgettable that I don't even know

what it was. But that was my first experience

with it, and I wasn't impressed with anything

enough to even bother with it again. So when

did you fall in love with the PlayStation, or

did you never fall in love with the PlayStation?

I never fell. No, I hated the system. Never touched

it. Final Fantasy VII. Enough said. That was

my first experience with the PlayStation. I was

a... And I've said this before, I was a die -hard...

I'm a game fan. Never been a system fan. I've

always been a fan of the games. I would sell

your mama for the right games. System loyalty

was never a thing to me. And for me back then,

Final Fantasy 7 was my game, or Final Fantasy

in general was my game series. So the moment

I found out when N64 was coming out that PlayStation

was getting Final Fantasy, I was like, well,

see you Nintendo. done looks like i'm playing

my playstation from looks like i'm playing the

playstation from now on i jumped uh when the

new console generation started and it was between

n64 and playstation i jumped to the playstation

well but the and i remember when that announcement

got made and and in my little 15 16 year old

brain i thought oh well so long nintendo the

you know well keep in mind chasing off the third

party developers keep in mind that the n64 and

the The PlayStation launched two years before

Final Fantasy showed up Well, that was what and

that's when I got my Final Fantasy I didn't I

think to me I think it was as I wasn't Interested

in letting go of the Super Nintendo Until the

next Final Fantasy game came out and I literally

waited the the weekend that Final Fantasy 7 launched

was when I bought my PlayStation Okay, so like

what was your first experience with the PlayStation?

Did you play at friends houses or like a demo

kiosk or anything like that? Um, I Think much

like Joe, I think Twisted Metal was my first

experience With the system I'm trying to think

if there's any other games I played Tony Hawk

Pro Skater I've never played the Tony Hawk Pro

Skater. That was so good. That was the first

thing I ever touched on it. Yeah, I knew. All

right. Shaunzy, how about you? Being that I've

only ever known you as an Xbox guy. The very

first thing I ever played on it was my buddy

Raul. Yeah. Way back in the day. I never owned

a playstation until they came out with like the

uh, what was it called? I think it was called

the ps1 Yeah, it was like the rounded corner

one. That was really tiny That was the first

one I ever owned. I never owned an original one.

You never had my buddies Well, I had the one

that was easy because all I would do is I would

Move it from friends house to friends house.

That's all we did Whoever's house we were all

hanging out at and we'd take turns playing tony

hawk pro skater and First time I ever played

Final Fantasy 7 I was about four hours into it

and my buddy came up and Yanked the memory card

out of the system. Oh Yeah, so and I never touched

the game again for like five years so So not

all of my first memories the playstations were

happy ones All right, well you guys like my memories

of Daner none of them are happy The world like

nightmares the good nightmares Sexy nightmares.

Sexy time nightmares. Kind of like Joe and Danner,

I was coming, I went from the Super Nintendo,

I was heavily in the Nintendo camp, you know,

the Nintendo Sega War, all that jazz. And I was

being a subscriber to Nintendo Power. It was

kind of like brainwashing material. Oh, yeah.

You just. you got that magazine every month or

whatever and you read through it and you always

basically you always knew what Nintendo was doing

and they drip fed you information about things

and I remember being excited about the N64 when

it was called the Ultra 64 which I thought was

a much better name and I so I was there's no

Nintendo there it was gonna be the Nintendo Ultra

64 yeah that's pretty much what it was it's like

the Nintendo that's horrible No, yes. But I.

I had I wanted I got an answer for that Christmas,

like the Christmas that it came out, I was bigger

than Nintendo 64. I remember renting it from

Blockbuster and stuff like that and playing at

my cousin's house and pilot rings and Mario and

stuff like that. It wasn't until like, I don't

know, that fall or maybe like the summer of 96

that I actually was able to. um play with the

playstation i mean i knew it was out there but

i didn't know anything about it because i wasn't

reading anything but nintendo power um i remember

going over to friends houses and my friend's

house and they had a playstation i remember we

had like they had crazy ivan this was like a

submarine uh a submarine game and then they had

i think they had twisted metal and i remember

the the the cases um they weren't like cd cases

there were these giant cardboard Boxes yeah,

you don't see a lot of those anymore. They don't

hang around Melted and dissolved by now So I

remember those and I just remember not Caring

for what it was because I remember at the time

I was playing starfox and at the time starfox

looked awesome And some of the stuff in starfox

still looks awesome to me But I was never really

sold on it. And then I think it was the next

spring. So when now we're in like 97, I picked

up an EGM and there was the the little blurb

and like upcoming games or like it was Q man

or like the rumor section of the magazine. It

was like it showed the picture of cloud on a

motorcycle with that sword. And it was a little

blurb about, you know, Final Fantasy seven. And

of course, I'm sitting there going, where the

hell is four, five and six? Because not following

any of that stuff. I was like, where are the

rest of the games? Why did they jump to seven?

Meanwhile, he was playing his N64. So, yeah,

so I. I just remember seeing that and at the

time I was really big into stuff like Chrono

Trigger and Secret of Mana and I was really big

into Square. I kind of started to follow like

developers and when Squaresoft revealed that

they were jumping ship from Nintendo for Sony

I was kind of like, I'm out. And I remember going

and I pre -ordered a copy of Final Fantasy 7

from... Like media replay or I can't remember

what the store was called in the mall It wasn't

like a babbages or a suncoast or anything like

that. I think it was media play was it I have

a vague memory of that. Yeah, I want to say it

was that too They had like darker colors like

black and purple. We had one of those that on

on alpine years ago and anyways, I wish I could

remember the name of it, but I pre -ordered it

from there and I remember, you know, I went to

pick it up. My grandma actually picked it up

for like a late birthday gift for me. So I had

the game and I went and bought myself a PlayStation

memory card before I ever had a PlayStation.

And I know I've said this before, I had both

the game and the memory card for like three months

because I didn't get a PlayStation until Christmas.

Well, it's kind of a theme with you now, isn't

it? I guess so. um except this is by accessory

before actual system except this is not three

months before and i was actually able to use

set accessories um if you could have boughten

those things three months before we about all

know you would have i probably would have you're

right um so that was like and by then i was just

kind of like you know i was like hook line and

sinker because i got along with uh final fantasy

i was also introduced to tomb raider and i was

introduced to like other games and then it was

just kind of like The N64 didn't look so good

to me anymore, because it really wasn't making

any games that I actually cared for. I think

one of the last games I ever got for my N64 was

Mischief Makers. I remember that. I hated that

game because you had to use the D -pad. What

inside of the joystick? Wouldn't let you use

the joystick? Nope, because it was a 2D side

scrolling game. It was vintage hardcore stuff.

So it was like my first experience, you know,

my first experience and stuff. And then, of course,

you know, you learn about the whole like the

falling out from Sony and Nintendo over who was

going to make a disk drive and blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. The rest is in case you're not aware

of that. The PlayStation one was originally supposed

to be an expansion. The Super Nintendo plugs

on top of it, and it was the disk drive that

we would then be able to play CD games. And as

they're developing this, With Sony and Nintendo

partners developing this disc system I'm not

sure what made Nintendo decide to do it, but

they went behind Sony's back started courting

Magnavox not Magnavox. I think it was Magnavox

I think it was Magnavox. I think so. Yeah, it's

what eventually became the CD -I. And before

either system came out, before any of the contracts

were finalized, except for one important one,

Nintendo said, nope, CDs are too fragile and

we hate load times. And they jumped off the CD

-ID and said, it's not time yet. But that wasn't

before Magnavox got a hold of. Link and Mario

had made their infamous crappy games for the

CDI. Nintendo created their worst villain by

giving Sony all of these ideas. I was going to

say it didn't really turn out well for Nintendo

in the long run. It did not. I bet they regret

that. The other thing that came out of that too

was there were a number of games that were in

development for that platform. I know one of

them was Secret of Mana. There's an interesting

thing that happens in Secret of Mana. Obviously

the game still came out for the Super Nintendo.

Basically the story of the game is you're supposed

to go and collect these eight magic seeds to

restore balance to the world. Well, what happens

is the first four... Seeds that you go get they

have a you know There's a really intricate dungeon

and kind of a story that goes along with them

and you're learning more and stuff And all that

stuff the world is really fleshed out the last

four that you go and get It's you land at the

temple and you pick up the seed and you leave

Well because they I bet they got done before

like shit. We need a four more No, it wasn't

that it was they didn't have the space It was

space concerns they they had this game planned

out with this like, you know the rich music that

the Super Nintendo could produce and and A lot

of it was a really, you know text heavy and art

assets and whatnot to make this expansive world

And then they you know, the CD drives got canned

and so they had to strip back on the game To

get it to fit onto a cartridge for a reasonable

price I wonder if that's how the 64 disk drive

got abandoned and how they then needed the expansion

pack to release games like Majora's Mask and

Donkey Kong Country. Except the disc drive was

still released in Japan. Yeah, and it came with

the expansion pack, I thought, too. I don't know

if it came with the expansion pack, because I

didn't hear about the expansion pack until after

the DD drive stopped. This is not because we

never got the DD. That's true, but this is not

the Nintendo podcast. No, sorry No, I I went

off on the tangent to talking about you know

secret of mana and stuff like that but I That

said I would actually like to see the director's

cut of secret of mana as it was meant to be because

that is one of my favorite games I wonder if

the data is out there So do you guys have any

like Favorite moments with the PlayStation Like

anything like I'm like a favorite memory that

stands out I do actually but I think I might

have already told this story Well, it's probably

back when we launched the podcast and now we

actually have listener. So, okay. Well, I'll

tell it again then My site my I guess it pairs

into my second PlayStation story. The second

time that I got my hands on one I was, I had

a job at Toys R Us and was working on selling

these things and a co -worker let me borrow his

PlayStation in a couple games and I took it home

and Final Fantasy was one of those games that

I played and everybody's telling me all the graphics

are awesome, all the graphics are awesome and

I keep, I kept having to tell them No, the graphics

aren't awesome. It's the cinematics that are

awesome. The graphics are terrible and I knew

that from the commercials and you know various

things that I had picked up and watched and seen

but Play I put Final Fantasy and watched it the

cutscene movie beautiful wonderful. Oh my god.

I can't this is neat. It's kind of cool I like

seeing these videos and then the gameplay started

and there's cloud at the train station with his

disembodied arms and blank head and just terrible,

terrible graphics. This is probably after I played

Ocarina of Time and how beautiful that was. And

that that instant was as far as I played in the

Final Fantasy 7. I was like, oh, this is terrible.

I can't look at this. And I turned that off.

But I will say I had a positive experience. I

was playing Resident Evil 2 on the PlayStation

and actually Metal Gear Solid, whatever they

called it. That one. I think it was just metal

gear not twin snakes twin snakes was the game.

It was just metal gear salad tactical espionage

action Enjoyed that shut up what? He's right

but anyway Resident Evil I sold many playstations

to people at Toys R Us because of this story.

I'm Resident Evil 2 you're in the police station.

I've cleared out this level Several times this

room this particular hallway cleared it out ran

up and down it several times and One time I enter

the room and the music is cut out and I go wait

a minute This is weird and so instead of running

through the hallway like I had a dozen times

before I'm creeping slowly through the hallway

and It's two o 'clock in the morning. I've probably

I'd probably had a two liter of Mountain Dew

and I'm creeping creeping creeping Smash the

glass breaks arms reach and grab my character

the controller starts vibrating in my hand I

squeal like a little girl throw the controller

across the room and mash the power the power

button all in a matter of about two seconds and

That was the end of my Resident Evil 2 experience

for that night because I've lost a whole bunch

of time without saving it, but Being able to

talk to the customers about the rumble feature

how immersive that experience was I think I know

that I sold quite a few playstations with Resident

Evil 2 Because of that got a lot of people gaming

that weren't gamers otherwise until that point

All right, Danny. We haven't heard from you in

a little bit because you've been busy. Yeah No,

no, I have so many good PlayStation experiences

My favorite was towards the end of the PlayStation's

life. My system was holding on for dear life

towards the end. And we used to play, most people

who've played the wrestling games has probably

played the SmackDown wrestling games. So we're

pretty big towards the end of the PlayStation.

But me and my buddy really liked ECW Anarchy

rules. And we would make just the most outlandish

characters for that game. My buddy Carl was notoriously

always made the same character on every single

game we played. And he made the Naked Native,

which was literally a African -American Guy that

was as skinny as he could possibly make him and

the only thing he wore was a loincloth But he

would give him super heavyweight like moves So

super little itty bitty Naked guy running around

picking people up and choke slamming them like

they're nothing because we cranked his strength

up and gave him all these super heavyweight moves

but it says literally naked guy just running

around beating the crap out of everybody um and

then he also made a god which was a 600 pound

purple woman with an afro that would just come

in and do airplane swinging arms throughout the

arena and just knock people over. Oh god, we

had way too much fun with that. But the issue

with the system was with loading up all these

creative characters it would really tax the CPU

and it would make the system overheat and the

system would shut down after you played for 30

minutes. We made a custom heat sink and by custom

heat sink I mean we found a really big bowl and

we filled it with ice and then we And we set

the PlayStation at top of the bowl So it would

keep it cool. So the hotter the system got the

more the the cool ice the ice would kind of melt

and cool air would blow up into the system and

we could play for hours on end, as long as we

had a bucket of ice underneath the system. So,

I mean, to me, I mean, just the ingenuity we

had to make that piece of shit work still was

mind boggling to me. The fact that that even

worked in the first place was mind boggling.

It's like the PlayStation version of using the

tape to bend the cord on the original Nintendo

to get it to work just right. Yep. So, I mean,

we... I had a lot of fun. The PlayStation is

pretty much where my love for fighting games

also died because we had so much fun with I still

like the wrestling games but the arcade fighters

like we played rival schools on the PlayStation

so much that we literally wore a ring into the

game because we were playing it so much and I

had to buy a second copy Because we had literally

worn out The first copy which I didn't think

it was possible to wear out a PlayStation game

Which I found to be true. You could you could

play a game so much that it just Your world ring

into it so That those were my my good awesome

positive PlayStation experiences. All right,

Shaz. Are you got any? Well, I remember probably

one of my best memories of the system was, um,

we would play Tony Hawk Pro Skater and see how

long of a continuous grind we could get. So basically

you just played the game. No, no, that's how,

if you could keep grinding, you could keep playing.

As soon as you stop, you had to go to the, you

know, there was like five of us all playing the

same system. So as soon as you messed up, here

you go, hand it off. the next person goes. And

those are probably my best things, because we'd

get going and it would be... It got to the point

where we're all pretty good. We could all pretty

much go for like half an hour or so. Wow. When

you... I lived in the country, nothing else to

do. It was either that, and the one cow was already

tipped over, so I don't know what else to do.

It just seems like that would get really boring

if you were the last person in line. Mean not

like playing scenes from a floor boring, but

I mean it would be just All kinds of just oh

my god, he's never gonna stop grinding Well,

it'd be good to the point where they'd get to

a jump and you'd be like and you'd flick the

controller Or you'd like pull on the the cord

yank it out of their hands Also, then you just

get Yeah, a lot of dick moves there. Oh, after

like, okay, how long would you sit and watch

someone else grind back and forth on the same

half -buck before you're like, all right, you're

done smack. Wait a second. Do... Now when you

said dick moves, Mike, were you referring to

the fact that he just said pull and yank? Because

that's what I was agreeing with. No, I was saying

he was pulling and yanking the controller out

of a guy's hands. I'm saying that's a dick move.

Shockingly, Danner's first thought was about

men genitalia. Who would have thought? It was,

it was. I thought Hugh was literally pulling

on the junk of his friends when he was younger.

No, I didn't do that when I was younger. I just

assumed that you've always been this way. I didn't

know this was something I'd taste be developed

over time. Not until I was older and really found

the value of money that I started doing those

kind of things. But, you know, that's just being

an adult. True, true. Got to get that paper.

Yes. Got to earn that paper. You're so white,

man, when you say things like that. So white.

Oh, my God. And you're not? I don't say things

like that. So. the playstation for me i didn't

have i mean i've got i've got stories to tell

about the my playstations um i was kind of it's

kind of brutal to them or i've had bad things

happen to my playstations uh the first one i

think i went through two or three of the first

playstations probably two um i remember i was

really i was into the playstation stuff about

the time that some family stuff started happening

and i was starting to backtalk my parents and

stuff like that and so the playstation made you

an unruly child no it didn't make me an unruly

child a girlfriend made me an unruly child um

but he had to pay extra and what happened was

my my mother in order to try and enact some sense

of revenge or some control over me uh she decided

to Take a hammer to all of my belongings in my

bedroom. Oh my god Um, so she trashed mom did

this. Yeah, she trashed my tv. She trashed my

stereo and she took a hammer to my playstation

Oh my god. Um now what's really interesting about

this story is she took a hammer to my I was not

there when this happened I came home to the aftermath

of this happening And my sister lauren my baby

sister who I love dearly I was, you know, I went

in my room and of course my PlayStation is broken.

The disc that was in it is in pieces. The thing

is beyond repair. And I was kind of like, what,

you know, I was, what happened, you know, and,

and, you know, I'm told that I'm, I'm told, you

know, I was told what my mom had done and, you

know, I, you know, I, whatever. Um, but my sister

Lauren told me she goes, Oh, when mom took the

hammer to your PlayStation, it would have been

fine. Except she left and I told her that she

didn't actually break it. And I showed her where

the open button was. Because my mom had actually

taken a hammer to it, but it just damaged the

casing on the outside. And then my sister showed

her where the open button was and she opened

up the hatch. Yeah, she opened up the hatch and

then she took the hammer to the inside of it,

which is why the CD shattered and the lens was

all broken. And I was like, why would you do

that? Makes a better story. So a long story short,

I ended up getting another PlayStation within

like a month because then it was Christmas time

again and my grandma bought me one. Think of

what you could have gotten instead of that second

playstation. I still got all that stuff. We'll

never know. No, I still got all that stuff too.

Christmas is a very spoiled little shit. Yes.

Christmas is a very spoiled time of year for

me, especially as a child. It's not so much that

anymore because I have money and I'm able to

buy stuff all year round rather than having to

wait till Christmas. I mean, he spoils himself

all year round. Yep. Every day is Christmas in

Mike's world. Yes it is. And then another one,

I think one of my favorite memories with the

PlayStation is just like when you spend time

with it and I was playing Xenogears at the time

and you're sitting there and you're walking around

and they have those random battles that happen

in most RPGs of that time where the screen like

you snap to another screen and that's where your

battle happens then you snap out to an overworld.

Well I don't remember this happening with too

many other games outside of Xenogears, but I

remember walking around the overworld map, and

then I could hear the disk drive spin up. So

I'd be walking around, and I'd go, and then the

screen would shatter into the battle. It's like

I always knew when they were coming. It was never

a surprise, because I could hear the disk drive

spin up. No, it was just, it didn't sound like

a 360, or a cow. It just it just went and then

the screen would shatter. I was like, oh, OK.

Other than that, my last favorite moment memory

was with the original Spider -Man game. I had

rented it from Blockbuster. I was super excited

to play. Wait, you're talking about the one that

was like narrated by Stanley. Yes. Yes, that

was an excellent game. Yeah, I totally forgot

about that till just a second. I brought it home

from Blockbuster. I threw it in. And obviously,

and I don't even know if you can do this in this

day and age, but, you know, you can't edit a

save card while a game is running. And I started

playing the game and I played for like two hours

or something, and then I decided, oh, I should

save it because I had somewhere to go. Well,

I went to save it, but the memory card was full.

Whoops. And rather than starting over for the

two hours I had played. I left the system on

continuously for a week while I played through

the game. If you did that now a day, you should

come back to a smoldering piece of plastic. No,

I wouldn't be playing the game like that on the

360. You don't play any games on the 360. Nope,

not anymore. Cause I'm all alone. Alright, so

let's move on to the next system here. which

I think more people may have some stuff to say

about. The PlayStation 2. It was released on

October 26th of 2000, selling 500 ,000 units

that fall at a price of $299. Let's see, it made

$250 million in sales on its first day across

all accessories, consoles, and games sold. It

was the first console with a DVD player or drive.

Sold over 155 million units as of March 31st,

2012. More than 3 ,800 games have been released

on the PlayStation 2. And it was discontinued

earlier this year on January 4th after a 12 -year

run. Some of the launch games which I do remember

some of these pretty fondly armored core to DOA

to hardcore dynasty warriors to ESPN international

track and field the winner X games snowboarding

eternal ring ever grace Fanta vision gun Griffin

blaze Madden NFL 2001 I believe I believe the

first entry in the Midnight Club series NHL 2001,

Orphan, Q Ball, Ready to Rumble Boxing Round

2, Ridge Racer 5, keep in mind the first Ridge

Racer came out with the PlayStation, Silent Scope,

Smuggler's Run, Street Fighter EX3, Summoner,

Surfing H3O, Swing Away Golf, Tekken Tag Tournament,

Time Splitters, Unreal Tournament, Wild Wild

Racing, and X Squad. So, Seanzy, did you play

any of these games? Played Armored Core. See,

I didn't have a PlayStation 2 until late in the

game. Until after I'd already owned an Xbox.

Had one at launch. Aren't you special? Tanner,

since you had one at launch. What year did you

say it came out in? 2000. 2000. So I was... Five.

In eighth grade. Same difference. You're a baby.

I was in college. I was a sophomore in college.

I feel old. But the good thing is, Daner, we

were still both at the same reading level. Alright,

so Daner, you had one at launch. What games did

you pick up? I picked up Smuggler's Run. And

You know, I got my PlayStation 2 at launch I

got a home I went to plug it. I should say at

college I took it out of the box and then I went

to plug it in and It didn't power up and it didn't

work out of the box. Oh So just a history of

awesome software and I did drive for Grand Rapids

to Lansing, which is a hour and a half drive

to the nearest GameStop that had a replacement

PS2 for me. That was awesome. So that was my

launch day experience with the PlayStation 2

was driving an hour so I could get a replacement,

which was awesome. But Smuggler's Run was the

first game I had for the system, and I loved

that game. But yeah, whenever I bring it up you

seem to poo poo it Well because I think you think

it's like this more fun this game needs to be

the best thing ever I don't think it's the best

thing ever I think it was really fun, and I'm

actually you know I'm just surprised that it

completely missed this last generation. It was

a rockstar game, too so And it amazes me that

the driving in GTA is so bad yet smugglers run

was so good Did you pick up any other games at

launch? For some reason, I think that was the

only one I ended up getting. I can't remember.

Not Times Flutters? No. I thought you were a

Times Flutters fan. I am a Times Flutters fan,

but I didn't get into Times Flutters until 2.

Alright. But... It's gonna bother me now, because

I don't... Well, I wouldn't say there was another

game I ended up picking up, but I can't remember

what it was for the life of me all right Joe

I Can't wow I was still a die -hard Nintendo

fan at the time the games that I was interested

in weren't on the PlayStation generally that

means Nintendo first -party titles were not on

the PlayStation, so I didn't even look in its

general direction My first hands -on time with

the PlayStation came after I got my job at GameStop

in 2002 or three. I don't remember precisely

when that was but from there on out it was just

Horror story after horror story as I dealt with

all of the customer complaints for broken discrete

error systems and This game is crap. What do

I do? Well, you go you go buy the only good game

on the system Which is like sly Cooper over there

sort of stories But I don't even I could even

tell you what the first game was that I played

on it. I didn't get one I didn't actually physically

have a PlayStation until one of my students When

I taught high school at the end of the year gave

me his old PlayStation 2 and I don't know why

he gave it to me you bought him No, he's a great

kid great kid Friends on Facebook still he's

a works in works in Antarctica as a chef I think

But I ended up sticking a hard drive in it and

Booting all sorts of illegal things onto it and

copying things and Playing them, but then I you

know, it's it's not something that I actually

enjoyed playing with the exception of Shadow

the Colossus I think that was the main reason

that I Ended up agreeing to take this PlayStation

because I never would have gone out and gotten

one unless it were free But played Shadow the

Colossus love that to death and and now it's

sitting retired on the shelf back here because

I have the HD remake All right. Um Well, like

all the other like the PlayStation before it

I Got the my ps2 for Christmas that year Another

spoiled story, if you will. My grandmother and

my mother would go and wait in line on Black

Friday at various different holiday sales and

try and get the stuff that my cousins and I wanted

for Christmas. Myself and both of my cousins,

we all wanted PlayStation 2s. As far as I knew

at the time, there wasn't an option for pre -orders,

so it was wait in line or you're screwed. And

I think it was my cousin who had a friend that

worked at Target. And the guy called and said,

I have, you know, we just got a shipment. There

are four PlayStation 2s that came in. I can hold

them here for like 30 minutes. And my grandma

ran up there and bought three of them. And it

was really interesting because I wasn't expecting

to get a PlayStation for Christmas, even though

it's what I really wanted. So what I did is I

made a plan to save up to buy the PlayStation

myself, and I asked for a stereo, a surround

sound stereo, just the receiver for Christmas

that had an optical input on it. I was planning

out my entertainment center ahead of getting

a PlayStation 2. So the center, just not the

entertainment. Right. and my grandma bought me

the stereo so on Christmas Eve I'm over there

and I unwrap you know my stereo and I'm like

I'm super happy that I have it don't get me wrong

it's great and I don't my my cousins they both

like unwrapped their PlayStation 2s and of course

they're in that awesome blue box which I still

have mine And I was I wasn't like mad or anything

because I knew because my cousin told me that

she had gotten three of them But there wasn't

one, you know There was one that was like missing

from under the tree and I don't really remember

what happened I never said anything or anything

like that My grandma just like she pulled me

aside like after everyone had already opened

up all their presents as the night was winding

down and she was like I can't remember what she

said to me, but she just she gave me the third

PlayStation 2 so I ended up getting you know

my playstation 2 and my stereo in the same night

which was just completely awesome because now

i had the surround sound to go along with it

um but i remember the games that i had at launch

um were armored core 2 which i hated after loving

the first armored core game on the playstation

i hated armored core 2 um because it was so slow

compared to the playstation version It went for

like this ultra -realistic vibe instead of like

a more arcadey vibe and it just killed it. I

also had Madden NFL 2001 because I had fun just

throwing Hail Marys and running the score up

super high because the game was broken in all

sorts of ways, as only an EA game can be. And

I remember having NHL 2001 and Jason and I played

the ever -loving shit out of that game. Part

of me wants to go back and collect all of the

old sports titles just because they're probably

really easy and dirt cheap easy to find and dirt

cheap to Purchase that actually be kind of cool

to see on a shelf Like year after year after

year challenge accepted So and smugglers run

I did I never owned smugglers run I did pick

I did rent it from the Blockbuster because that

was a thing back then renting games And I did

I did love it and like I said just a little while

ago I still can't believe that missed this generation,

especially with all the open -worldness that

was going on Smuggler's run was one of the largest

games I can think of on the PlayStation 2 Sounds

like I need to try that game out. It's If you

like driving and you like the whole like, you

know, it's you they just graphically will not

hold up No, it won't but it's one look, but I

think I could be wrong, but I think if you actually

sit down and you actually play it for what it

is, you'll kind of understand why I don't, you

might understand why I think it's odd that it

missed this last generation. Because the game

is so simple. But it's a lot of fun. Basically,

it's just like it says, you're smuggling. And

in Smuggler's Run 2, they added offensive capabilities

to your vehicle. Instead of just out running

things, you could drop like smoke bombs and oil

slicks and some other things like that. So defensive

capabilities. Well, I think there are some offensive

capabilities, too. But you're right. You're right.

I'm wrong. Defensive capabilities. So any you

guys have any stories you want to share about

the PlayStation 2? Any memorable ones? I remember

that was my first online gaming experience. Because

you could get the you could get the network adapter

and look it on the back Wow Okay, yeah Joe Danner

nothing I could I could go on for a very long

time about all of the customer experiences I

had but it would I don't know, I don't think

that'd be fun to listen to. I'm not talking about

other people's experiences, I'm talking about

your experiences. That was my experience with

the PlayStation 2. Oh, man. I went through two

and I never experienced any issue whatsoever.

I never got a disc read error. Well, I take that

back. I didn't get a disc read error until...

I had a launch one that worked and it lasted

me various DVDs and games and stuff like that.

It lasted... about four or five years. And I

don't I opened it up and I sprayed all the dust

out of it and it lasted like another three months.

And I think what had happened is one of my roommates

in college may have spilled something on it.

I didn't tell you right, because when I opened

it up, there was some corrosion on the motherboard.

And I think that's what was wrong because when

it was throwing up an error it would just sometimes

it would read and other times it wouldn't And

I just I just replaced it with a new one because

the new ones had an infrared port in it and made

it a better DVD player and stuff like that, but

Yeah, I never had I haven't had any issues with

any of my PlayStation systems knock on wood There

were there were the few customers that would

come in and Return exchange or throw away their

system and and I'm remembering one guy who had

gone through at least five Playstations and this

was before the unofficial silent Hey, we'll actually

fix them for free sort of repair thing that they

eventually did but He had he bought five full

price Playstations. I don't know what game he

was playing that was worth buying five full price

playstations to continue to play it, to continue

to have access to the game. After the third one,

I would really seriously reconsider my priorities

in life and go, wow, I really want to give them

my... Yeah, I would buy the second one and be

like, this happens again, I'm done. Yeah, and

at the same time, this is... And I lost my train

of thought. That's too bad. Just I felt bad for

all the customers who were buying this over and

over. I remember I was going Sony's PlayStation

2 sales numbers were so ridiculously high I I

mean I can't imagine that they weren't counting

all of the people who had to rebuy the system

three four times as sales numbers and You could

also say that about the 360 They might have reported

those as multiple sales But when when those things

broke and they kind of got caught realizing oops

it was a design problem they Extended the warranty

and replaced him for free there was maybe a month

of problems But the dealing with customer service

at the GameStop at the store level either calling

Sony or calling Microsoft Microsoft took care

of business Sony did not Hello, no hello was

that that's I don't hear my echo anymore. I hear

an echo. It's gotta be I hear an echo Sorry Better

Joe speak yeah, okay. How about now? Yeah, that's

better. Okay? Um What's I mean, I don't know

it's just I I I've already You know Ali, Ali

having never been through like an actual legitimate

console launch and the fact that we have two

of them coming to the house I've I have told

her I said it's gonna be a miracle if both of

them work So we're kind of we're I'm almost expecting

one of them not to work just like I'm expecting

PlayStation Network to not work on Friday well

it's kind of it's kind of like if i play it low

then i'll be i'll be really happy and awesome

when it does work and if it doesn't work then

i'll just know that you know this is the way

shit happens so um daner do you have any memorable

playstation stories that are your own not other

people's no other customers i mean i had a love

hate relationship when it comes to uh PlayStation

because of game stop Unfortunately, so I Don't

know I mean it's Okay, sorry I just cut the idea

part To people that don't know what you're talking

about that's a really weird sentence to say He

he accidentally. Well, I don't want to say he

broke my microphone, but the microphone I gave

him to use to record this show broke imploded

and he was trying to fix it. Yeah. I've had to

go through. Amazingly enough, this is going to

be really sad. The only place I found to actually

tell me how to disassemble this thing is a a

Internet forum for the Calgary, Alberta, Alberta

Flames. Okay Thank you Google, thank you Google

so yeah So I Want to say I Working at GameStop

really kind of ruined me on the PlayStation seeing

how many issues there were out there with it

Which is kind of disheartening in the long run

so I I But you personally like you don't have

any fun stories about playing the PlayStation

2 or Just I mean, I know you said you had to

drive an hour to get yours replaced but like

like I I probably got to say that my Best. The

best memory I have, I think, is how surprised

I was by God of War. I do remember you talking

about God of War at the theater. Yeah, I think

that was the first... See, I played God of War

and said I played this before. It was Ninja Gaiden

on the Xbox. I didn't get the God of War thing.

I like the way you say Ninja Gaiden. What did

I think? Ninja Gaiden! I like Greek mythology

and that was cool to me and I just really enjoyed

the game series in general. I shouldn't say that's

a lie. I didn't enjoy the game series. I enjoyed

the first one. Other games, I mean there was

a lot of games on the system I really really

enjoyed I had a lot of fun with Dark Cloud was

a game I had a lot of fun with But there was

also low points for me like Final Fantasy X PlayStation

2 was successful on curing me of whatever love

I had for Final Fantasy at any given point in

time So all the things that the all the things

that I really really loved About the PlayStation

the PlayStation 2 managed to destroy all that

for me The flip side of that though I discovered

it fell in love with direction and clank series

I was gonna say cuz can you really blame? I mean,

okay, so you fell in love all the stuff you loved

about the PlayStation I don't is that the PlayStation

2 is fault that square decided to destroy their

own franchise like that's not On Sony, that's

on Square. I don't... Oh no, I agree. It is on

Square. I mean, it's... Nothing to do with...

Yeah, Sony's got... It's nothing to do with the

fact that Square... I... You're just bad because

that's the side of... That's the generation where

Square went to hell, and you just associate it

with Association 2. Yeah. Unfortunately, yeah.

Because, I mean... We had so many great things

on PlayStation 1 from Square. I mean, we had

Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy 7. Don't say

Chrono Cross. I didn't say that. I'm just saying,

don't say it or I'll hang up on you. I did it.

Good. Just hoping you wouldn't. Let's not acknowledge

that even as a game. Good. That's what I like

to hear. Pretend that it was never a thing. Pretend

that what was never a thing. Very good. Exactly.

Your penis was never a thing, Sean. Ask your

wife. Oh, you son of a bitch. Oh, yes, because

over the course, the last couple of podcasts

were totally even. I have no idea what you're

saying. I'm jerking off with my tear -laced Jerkins

as we speak. All right. Well, do we want to move

on to the PlayStation 3? Okay. All right. PlayStation

3. It was released on November 17th, 2006. for

a price of $499 for the 20 gigabyte model and

$599 for the 60 gigabyte model and myself and

i'm sure everybody else in the gaming world laughed

their asses off um the first it was the first

console with the blu -ray drive slash player

uh the system sold about 600 000 units in its

first two days and 599 000 were returned Launch

games included The Awesome Call of Duty 3, Genji

Days of the Blade, Madden NFL 07, Marvel Ultimate

Alliance, Mobile Suit Gundam Crossfire, Need

for Speed Carbon, NBA 07, NBA 2K7, NHL 2K7, Resistance

Fall of Man, Ridge Racer 7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour

07, Tony Hawk's Project 8, An untold legend's

dark kingdom. Let's see. I had I had Shonzi go.

I had Joe go first. Danner. Yes. Did you get

a PlayStation? You didn't get a PlayStation 3

at launch. I know this because I was friends

with you at this time. No, I did not. And I was

gonna say the only one of those games that I've

played is Resistance. Okay, I guess this goes

really quick. None of us had a PlayStation 3

at launch, correct? Nope. Okay. So, dare I ask

Joe, what was your first experience with the

PlayStation 3? Like yours personally, not...

Customer experiences. Oh, it's okay. We didn't

have any customers for the PlayStation 3 We drove

them away from the PlayStation 3 It wasn't hard.

I mean there was a period between January and

April where we didn't sell a single unit and

It wasn't for I mean it was partially for lack

of trying but you know people come in that's

good. Usually they know what they want and nobody

ever asked for it Can't even remember when I

first played it All right dinner Man yeah, I

was kicking and screaming this generation the

whole way in I'm trying I'm trying to even I

don't even remember why I bought a PlayStation

the first place Why why eventually came to buy

it ps3? I think it was you problem that we can't

answer this question for you guys Retail ruined

me it did GameStop just killed me um Man. Boy,

yeah, for some PlayStation fanboys here really

landing on thick here, guys. I think ultimately

the games got me there for the PlayStation. Eventually,

someone's playing with something. Sorry. It wasn't

me this time. For once, it's not Joe. One with

all the toys on his desk. All right Shonzi Yes,

you were very late and you actually ended up

selling your PlayStation 3 back. Yeah, well after

it broke yes, I Thought I thought you just got

tired of using it as a Netflix player No, well

that that kind of bummed me out But then I tried

to play something and then I think I've said

on the podcast board. Thank you for listening

by the way So I was so it wouldn't sometimes

it would play the game Sometimes it wouldn't

sometime the disk tray would open whenever it

felt like it sometimes when I didn't even push

the button Did you have it doesn't even have

a tray parent what? Here's three or not that

not the trade that the it sometimes it would

just eject the disk rather sometimes It wouldn't

let me push the disk in Okay, which was fun Think

I'm the only one that's ever had a good experience

with the Sony system Positive experience with

the ps3 since I got it He just didn't want to

get it The ps3 is the only actually you should

say that the ps3 is the only system I've had

no issues with that's been a Sony system. Oh

God, I'm buying a launch ps4. What's wrong with

me? I don't know. I'm telling I have Way more

faith in Sony than I've ever had before for releasing

a good system. I Well, it's their message but

we can talk about that and in a little bit here

I for me I Jumped on you know, I I was a PlayStation

fanboy since I switched to the PlayStation. I

loved the PlayStation 2 for me When it came down

to the last generation which you know eight years

ago I did not have a 360 at launch. I didn't

care for the 360. I was not an Xbox fan at all.

But in 2006, I had the job that I have now and

I had no expenses, no nothing. And I was trying

to find stuff to play. And one of the things

I wanted, I wanted an HDTV. So I did some research

and I went out and bought one and Danner now

has that HDTV. Which I hope that's not broken,

is it? No, that's not broken. That works fine.

Okay So I I went out and bought that TV and I

was really happy with it. I got it home I bought

component cables for my PlayStation 2 just because

I knew that that would make the picture look

a little better plugged that hooked it up got

it all ready to go and it looked like shit Hot

street trash. Yeah, it was awful Awful I couldn't

I and at that moment I was okay that's it I have

to get some I have to get a next -gen I have

to get an HD console so you know the PlayStation

launched and I didn't have I couldn't you know

afford you know five six hundred dollars for

a system but on Black Friday that year Circuit

City had this crazy deal going for the 360 it

was like buy one it was like buy one game get

one Buy one get one on the games and then the

sit like the 20 gig system was marked down to

like 300 bucks or something like that 20 gig

I just keep thinking about that and I was like,

oh my god, I need 20 gig I'll never be able to

fill that up. Oh, that's like two games Yeah,

well that'd be that that was before you could

Install stuff install the game to the desk. So

it wasn't that much But if you want to put any

kind of thing on there, it's like, oh, you want

to put all the DLC for that game on? There's

10 gigs. So anyways, I jumped to I jumped to

the 360 because I wanted I wanted to play HD

games and I got Gears of War and I got because

that was like the 360 game that year and played

the hell out of that. And I got NHL 2006 or whatever

it was, 2007 played the hell out of that with

my friend Jason. And. It wasn't until again,

for some reason, I was not aware of the Red Ring

of Death, or I think I was aware of it, and so

I actually bought a warranty from Circuit City

when I got my system. And I was the warranty

that he eventually didn't need for Red Ring.

Well, I was really I was luckily I was able to

get some of my money back because I was really

pissed. That fall, the fall of 07. My system

red -ringed and I took it up to Circus City because

I still had the the two -year thing on it and

they're like I'm sorry you need to send this

into Mike they're like you need to send this

into Microsoft and like but I Have this from

you. You should replace it They're like well,

we're not gonna honor it anymore. And then I

had to fight with them to get my money back So

I was able to get you know a good chunk of it

back for that warranty thing shocking that such

a good You know company would do that. Oh wait,

they're not around anymore, right? So I, while

it was out, it went out to get repaired, it came

back, and then it ended up, the system they ended

up sending me ended up damaging like several

games that I put into it, like the tray would

scratch rings into the disc. Put the circle?

Yep. So I sent that back to them, and by this

time, my system had been unusable for about two

months, and Sony, I'd about had it. and it was

about that time that Sony announced that they

were going to drop the price to $399 for a 40

gig drive and I was like okay that's it I'm sold

so I went and made the jump to the PlayStation

3 and I kind of went on I kind of went on the

notion that if I'm going to play a single player

game I'm going to play it on the PlayStation

3 and if I'm going to play a multiplayer game

I'm going to play it on live because as we said

on the last episode live was excellent it was

Way ahead of the PlayStation Network But I just

one of the first games I got for the PlayStation

3 was Uncharted and I was just it was it was

over from there like the games on the on the

360 they just They couldn't do it for me anymore

And then after that obviously it was it went

to infamous and then you know Like the big tentpole

games like Infamous Uncharted 2, stuff like that.

And eventually I've, you know, evangelized it

enough, supposedly, to get Danner to actually

purchase one. Yep. I still have the same problem

with the PS3 I always had. I can't stand getting

a new game, bring it home, and then waiting for

20, 30 minutes as it installs. If you're lucky.

I've never waited that long. Not gonna be an

issue on Friday. I've never waited that long.

Ever. I have waited up to two hours for the game

to download and install. Oh yeah, I've done over

an hour mark, easy. And I didn't play that many

games on it. I've never done that, but then again,

I don't have the stock drive in it. I don't know

if that has anything to do with it. But I've

never... It's never taken me that long to...

An install at moat. I think the longest install

was Gran Turismo But that was because Gran Turismo

installed almost the entire game I Looked at

that and I mean, why did it have to install when

it doesn't install on the Xbox? I put it in and

I play it it's I wasn't sure what PlayStation

was doing different. It's and then the gameplay

wasn't that different It didn't reduce load times

that much at all. It's a The reason they do it

is because the way the memory is used on both

systems. Obviously the 360 has a unified pool

of memory and the PlayStation 3 does not. There's

250 gigs of system memory and then there's 256

gigs for the graphics card. And I think what

some developers were doing, most notably, man,

forgive me, the guys behind Fallout and Oblivion.

But yeah, most notably Bethesda, they were using

the drive very heavily to cache as like extra

RAM. Because they could pull they could pull

things faster from the hard drive than they could

from. the system. But then again, that's a third

-party developer because first -party titles,

Infamous, Uncharted, those games, they don't

have installs. Or if they do, they're almost

non -existent. And once those games start, they're

good to go. Because they load things in during

the cutscenes. They're really good at streaming

off the disc. That's kind of one of the things

that Rockstar probably adopted for Grand Theft

Auto V was the ability to stream things off of

the disk and the hard drive simultaneously. And

that was a way that certain developers overcame

the limitations of the hardware, which is not

a thing. Not only are there background installs

on the PS4, but there is not... The hardware

the architecture is far more flexible than it

was the last time around Even even still what's

I the minute? Microsoft gave you the ability

to install games to the hard drive. I installed

everything I don't put a game in my 360 with

and play it without installing it first Depends

on the game. I I can't I don't like listening

to that damn thing. It's too loud. I hate it

Soon as you install it it makes no noise and

it's much better Makes less noise. Well, I have

a slim, so it makes zero noise. So do I. Yeah,

mine still reads from the disk. I can't. Especially

on the LA Noire, but that's because it's LA Noire.

A mess. I even tell Ali, I have to remind her,

I said, if you play a game on the 360, you need

to install it. Because otherwise you're going

to kill that system eventually. So it's just

extra heat that the system doesn't know what

to do with. PS3 kind of left a bad taste in my

mouth because the last game I ever played on

it, you know, completely was Skyrim and Hoi Gavalt

was at a fucking horror show. Oh, I bet. I've

heard stories about that. And I finished it before

those patches came out to fix it. It must have

been a interesting game. The last couple of hours

got pretty shitty, let me tell you. For anyone

who's not aware what happened was is the game

would continuously try to load every tiny little

thing you've touched All right, so entire world

since Does anyone else have anything they want

to say about the PlayStation 2 3rd 3 sorry PlayStation

3 Uncharted 2 yes uncharted 2 all right now if

we want to We can touch on the PlayStation 4

ever so slightly before you know we talk about

it a little more in -depth next week I What was

it last Thursday I ran out to Best Buy as I am

want to do from time to time and they lo and

behold they had the PlayStation 4 controllers

on sale in the Fine I am a nerd. I don't I don't

deny that You couldn't deny it if you wanted

to but I went out I ran out there and they had

their controllers out there and I was kind of

like I Really want to I really want to get one

because I want to try one. I just I really want

to Because I like doing this show and I like

be able to talk to you guys about stuff that

you know Maybe that's completely unnecessary

completely unnecessary because buying a PlayStation

4 player PlayStation 3 Anyways, I ran out there

and I couldn't really bring myself to buy it

But I found myself out on Miller Road, which

is where Best Buy is again. I found myself out

there the next night and I quickly ran a YouTube

video and I was like, you know, if the PlayStation

4 controller works with Arkham Origins, I will

pick it up. And sure enough, there was a video

on YouTube where a guy, you know, if you hook

a PlayStation 4 controller to a PS3 using the

USB cable, it works. So I decided to go ahead

and pick it up. So I've been playing with it

for just under a week now It I You know Joe has

a different opinion than me. I think I really

like it I really like it. I find it to be It's

slightly heavier than the DualShock 3 But it's

not as heavy as a an Xbox 360 controller The

surface buttons are a little closer together,

and as you've probably read online or not, the

buttons are no longer analog, like the face buttons.

They're actually digital. They're not quite as

clicky as the PlayStation Vita, like I was hoping

for. How sensitive are they? They're digital.

I mean, they're... Don't know they register But

I mean like say if you have your thumb resting

on top of what the you know X button Is it gonna

register as it a hit? No you there is definitely

a click there. Okay, there isn't like a There

isn't like the snappy click kind of like with

the Vita, but there's definitely you know when

you press the button And the face buttons are

a little closer together so you don't have to

like move your fingers as far to get them the

analog sticks are Slightly further apart and

they feel really good I told as a as I told Dan

or I think it was um was a Tuesday when I was

at work I had my first instance where the redesign

analog stick actually kind of saved my butt In

Arkham origins I was in the middle of combat

and I had moved my finger in such a way that

If I had been using a traditional PlayStation

3 controller, my thumb would have slipped right

off the stick and I probably would have died

But I was able to, you know, just hook my thumb

in just enough into the groove and keep my finger

on the stick. So I didn't lose complete control.

The triggers are nice. I don't really I can't

really say how they might compare to the 360

controller. Although, Joe, you said you thought

they were still placed too high. Well, the I

absolutely love. the controller comparing it

to the DualShock that they should have changed

10 years ago. The joysticks being further apart.

The joysticks being set lower into the controller.

They don't stick out as far. So that means that

the range of motion is reduced so you don't have

to move your thumb as far over to get to the

edge of the motion. Between those two things,

the controller is really solid. It feels like

a good solid thing. in your hands um i don't

know how do you describe that i don't know it

doesn't feel like a cheap piece of plastic it

doesn't feel like a rock it's just solid it is

a very solid controller it's so light too it

i one thing that really kind of surprises me

and i i don't know what i was why i was expecting

this to be any different the playstation controllers

when they come out of the packaging they all

feel cheap like when they're brand new just out

of the packaging I don't know if it's like because

they don't have like any kind of like oils like

kind of like in on the surface or anything like

that but they just all feel cheap like this controller

Now after using it for about a week does not

feel the same way it did when I pulled it out

of the package Is it because they're more like

a smooth plastic whereas like the back for 360

controllers kind of it's not quite so smooth

There's almost like a slight texture to it. This

is this has texture on it They actually did texture

the the grip, but I'm saying is that why is that

why it doesn't feel cheap? No, no, it just like

Joe said it just feels a lot more solid I think

it's because it's a little heavier a little heavier

But it's not too heavy to where you don't want

to you know use it all the time But it's not

too light where you feel like you're playing

with a cheap toy the I The triggers don't bother

me. I think they're I think they're really nice,

but I haven't been able to play a shooter Unfortunately,

while the game while the controller did work

with Arkham Origins. It did not work with Grand

Theft Auto So I yeah, you can kind of hear how

they click now, I don't really think That's pretty

exciting radio here, us hearing you click buttons.

Okay. The trackpad obviously doesn't work on

the PS3 because it doesn't do anything, but the

share button and the option button, they just

function like the select and the start button.

The other button that didn't work though, which

is really interesting, was the PlayStation button.

So even though I could go into and start a game,

I couldn't exit to the dashboard. I had to have

my PlayStation 3 controller there as player two,

just to get out of the game. For God's sake he's

using it on a ps3 relax. Yeah, it's not fully

functional The game the controller also does

work on PC and Mac if you want to use it to play

video games Yeah, that's one thing I've heard

is that it works with computers straight out

of the box You don't have to download drivers.

Well, so did the the DualShock 3 controller also

does as well. Oh does it? Yeah, really Bluetooth

it'll probably work better if you hook it up

with a USB cable, okay But the light bar is actually

when I hook the light the little light thing

does glow it turns yellow when I plug it into

the My ps3 that's gonna be interesting to see

how that works because I know a lot of developers

are saying like You know that they're gonna use

the light bar to kind of immerse you in into

the game But the weird thing is when you're holding

the controller, you can't see the light I was

gonna say isn't the light on the front of it

It is but it kind of faces down. So I wonder

if it's just I wonder if it's like powerful enough

I haven't used it in the dark. So I'm wondering

if it's gonna illuminate your crotch as you're

playing No, it's not quite like it doesn't aim

straight down. It's But I think that it's going

to be kind of neat. If anyone is interested in

one or you're getting a PS4, it does need a micro

USB. The last one, the PS3 used a mini USB cable.

So you do need new USB cables to charge them.

If you have an Android phone or a... All cell

phones use micro USB. Yeah, I thought that's

what I was going to say. Probably all that to

my iPhone. That's what I was going to say. If

you have if you have like a nook or a Kindle

or an Android phone or anything like that, it's

you've already got micro USB cables lying around.

However, if you don't, Monoprice is a great place

to get them. I actually just bought four 15 foot

micro USB cables for like $15. That includes

shipping. Are you planning on having four controllers?

Well, I have three. I like having I have cats.

So that you're so you're buying spares so when

they chew through the cords exactly exactly I

was gonna say cuz my PlayStation I had two controllers

for it. I Can't remember ever using the second

controller Yeah, I could never justify buying

a nice second controller you get the shitty mad

cats or GameStop ones I can't I can't buy their

stuff man. I'd rather spend the money on an actual

licensed controller I wouldn't. That's just one

more edge for me against whoever I'm playing

against. So the other little thing, and Daner

can chime in here, too. Thank you, Amazon. We

have received some of our PlayStation 4 games.

More will be here tomorrow. If anyone's interested,

you know, you've got your standard manual and

stuff on the inside. Battlefield comes with a

voucher for some downloadable content disc. The

disc looks like a blu -ray disc it's your typical

thing except it says ps4 down at the bottom instead

of ps3 it's in blue instead of black I know right

this is this is the stuff people want to know

about um Colors of font of you know text and

font right and you're just like the 360 before

it going up before but the 360 are green cases

now we've got blue cases It's a nice blue though

It is. But is it going to be like every single

Sony thing where they start with a case that

looks one way and then two years and they have

completely abandoned the case design? Well, they

didn't really abandon the case design for the

PS4. They abandoned the logo. Yes, but they didn't

change the color. Interesting things of note,

mainly this time around, Battlefield 4. 40 gigabyte

install minimum. Call of Duty goes. Yeah, wait,

wait for it because. 49 gigabyte minimum. I can't

comment on Call of Duty because I didn't really

play too much of the last Call of Duty game on

360 at least, but Battlefield with its multiplayer

updates and its expansion packs. I think my Battlefield

3 now has like 20 something gigs added on top

of the game. So wait for that to eat up your

space. Yeah, that'd be like another 40 gigabytes

Oh, it's probably gonna be at least that but

that's if we decide to buy DLC for this game

Yeah, well you cannot and then never play against

people online again. It's true. It's very true

Especially when it's all people run their own

servers Well, actually I think they're actually

gonna do their own servers now, too They had

like, yeah, but they'll have like three and they'll

be packed. You'll never get into them. I think

it's gonna be more than that. No, they made more

independent servers this time around to compete

against Call of Duty's independent servers. If

they made five, that was more. So yeah, I mean,

obviously we'll have more to say about this stuff

on next week's episode, but PS4 is here, guys.

Well, it's not here. It'll be here when they

listen to this, probably. That's true. It's technically

in transit right now. Tomorrow night on the eve.

Well, you guys are probably listening to this

or maybe you're not. My wife and I are going

to be waiting in line at Best Buy to pick up

ours, to pick up the first of ours. And then

I'm going to, you know, come home, get that set

up. I don't know when I'm going to sleep this

weekend, because I have the entire weekend off.

Oh, God. I'm going to try and live stream some

stuff, assuming the PlayStation Network works,

because you can now stream to Twitch. So I'll

be streaming some of that. And I might be able

to get Google Hangouts working so I can actually

show you guys some stuff if you want to see it.

But, Sean, do you got to go? I got a couple minutes.

OK. Said that I gotta go Joe's gotta go. Okay

Enjoy your ps4 tomorrow evening. I will try to

I wonder how I well I Teach in the inner city.

None of my students are going to have ps4s. Well,

are you gonna come over to my house on Friday?

Probably not because we're going to Ohio Fuck

you and Andy. Both of you aren't coming over

Joe. No Tanner. You should just pack your system

up and come over here. Nope, okay According to

Amazon, it's not showing up till 8 p .m. At night,

which I don't believe at all, but it's just by

8 p .m. I know All right. Have a good night gentlemen.

Thank you listeners. It's UPS. Bye Joe. Bye.

It's the upstruck. Bye Joe. If it wasn't UPS,

I'd be pissed. Bye Joe! All right. Well, I guess

we can wrap this up Unless you guys want to do

a little listener feedback from the last episode

Let's do some listener feedback. Sure, since

I wasn't here last episode. Well, I mean, I was.

You were here. All right, so Ryan Hannity. You

in your tears. Since it wasn't on the podcast,

what would you all say is the best game of this

generation? He says his top five were Portal

2, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed

2, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. So. This is

one of the things we didn't I actually asked

if we were going to pick a best game of the generation

You said we did one for each console. Do you

want to try and pick a game of the generation?

Like right here right now I Tried it too really

no Sean your PD doesn't count it does count my

opinion is your opinion remember You're the one

voicing me I was gonna say What are you going

to pick since row four? No, don't be stupid.

It's clear. Okay. Let's come back to this one.

Well, yeah, like, but like it's odd his choice

of Mass Effect two, because that's probably one

of the weaker of the games. I would say in my

personal opinion. Yeah. I'm questioning the Modern

Warfare two, but. I still think Call of Duty

4 is still the best. Yes. I will agree with that.

SuperFilmFans98 says, I don't know how many total

hours I spent with Skyrim, but it's close to

Mike's with Borderlands. I can't play that game

without putting at least four hours minimum.

It sucks me in. And then Ryan Hannity chimes

in with, well, you can add me to that list. Missed

a date because I was absorbed in in the world

of Skyrim. Before you ask, before you ask, it

was worth it. Oh, God. Dragono finishes it up

with, I can count on the on two hands the number

of relationships I know were ruined because of

Skyrim. Wow. How many how many? Skyrim isn't

even that old. OK, I played the Skyrim. OK, did

either of you guys play Skyrim? I did not. No,

but blow jobs are better. Moving on but Wait,

I'm more concerned about this the guy went through

ten Ten relationships. He's no he said that he

knew of ten relationships. I don't think he said

that he had ten. Oh Okay. All right. See I'm

not even reading it and I'm doing a better job

than you Jesus get with it. All right Rachel

Manning Looks like we actually have a female

follower. Let's do our best not to offend her

The best thing that happened this generation

was indie gaming because it gave us the best

game of the generation Journey simple but brilliant

Superfilm fan jumps in and says I cannot agree

more Well, I wouldn't call it the best game of

the generation, but it was amazing And then King

of Kongs wraps it up with, best of the generation

is too far for me. It's great. Don't get me wrong.

But best of this of this generation, there's

much more out there that beats it. I agree with

him. Journey's really good. Oh, my God. You and

Joe should do some married Journey. Love Journey.

It's so great. Such a great gaming experience.

I love it so much. That's the sound of them blowing

journey again. Sorry to our to our one Okay,

now done Okay, here's the thing if if there if

I could put gone home on If I could have put

gone home in this list Which I did and you got

irritated about and I understand why? Right But

if I could have put gone home in there like if

we're just if we're just looking at the last

eight years of gaming I I would probably put

Gone Home over Journey. Like just as a generation

thing. But anyways. I just I don't disagree.

The fact that Journey is a neat, nifty little

game. I just I don't know. I guess I didn't see.

What you guys saw. Did you play with a bunch

of kids running around you? No. Oh. Okay. It

did take me two sittings to get through it, though.

Oh, see, I played through it in one sitting.

Actually, I played through it twice in one. Like,

I played through the game twice, both times in

one sitting each. And I think that's the game.

I think that's one of those things where the

game needs to be taken as a whole and not broken.

Yeah, I understand and you know, I understand

that may not be possible But I'm just I think

that's I think that's part of it because the

immersion isn't broken You're actually like sucked

in and some part of you is invest It's kind of

like it's kind of like when I say that I can't

go by the way by Shonzi Bye guys. Bye It's kind

of like when I when I watch or when we were playing

the walking dead and I said that you know I put

a day between episode 4 and episode 5 Yeah, I

lost I lost my momentum. I have a feeling it

would be kind of kind of the same thing And maybe

not you know, but All right The walking dread

this is the comment I brought up before we started

recording Not surprising Xbox won this generation.

I agree ps3 had some better games, but as an

overall experience Xbox was superior The red

ring of death was an issue, but the ps3 online

hacking was much much worse um walking dread

i i have to disagree with you about the hacking

issue um well it did bring down the playstation

network and you know many people had their identities

stolen and you know i don't know we don't even

know if identities were stolen um because i don't

count a still i i don't really count an identity

as being stolen unless it's actually being used

um but information was stolen um I, unlike the

Red Ring of Death, where my system was out of

commission for two months, and I could not play

any games because the system wasn't in the house,

the PlayStation Network going down did not prevent

me from playing PlayStation games, and, oddly

enough, I was actually still able to access Netflix,

which you supposedly weren't supposed to be able

to do. So, I don't really think the hacking thing

was as bad as the Red Ring of Death. because

it didn't interrupt my gaming at all. Do you

have an opinion, Daner? Do you think one was

worse than the other? I still think the Red Ring

was worse. And I mean, I had far more issues

with the Red Wing. Red, Red Wing. Oh, my God.

With the Red Ring of Death than I had with. The

with the network being down for PlayStation,

I just didn't see it. I don't know. I thought

it was. It didn't interrupt you as a gamer. No,

it didn't. And the fact that Sony really I felt

made up for the whole thing by offering the free

games. And at the end of that, I thought was

really cool of them. I mean, Microsoft, they

were replacing the systems for free. But like

you said, you're without a system for a long

period of time. Um, so I, I don't think the two,

to me, I don't feel the events are comparable.

Um, because one's a security issue and the other

was a hardware issue. Right. So software versus

hardware. Don't get me wrong. They were blemishes

to both the companies. So there's, I mean, some

similarities to it but I just I don't know for

some reason mostly I think because of the fact

that we were playing our online games on the

360 we were playing our individual like single

player games on the ps3 that it was less effective

towards us because we weren't really utilizing

the ps3 strictly for online play right no I can

agree with that one all right Connor Murphy Says

I voted for Bioshock for best FPS because it's

the only it's the only thing close to FPS that

I have actually played and I'd rather that win

than anything Call of Duty. I agree. Walking

Dread chimes in with why do people hate COD so

much? I get jackasses love it. Does it make doesn't

make that the game doesn't make the game a bad

game? And then Ryan Handy. Says I blame the cod

online community. It's full of 12 year old racist

pricks Have you played with the left for dead

community? Holy shit. Those guys are so much

worse This is really fun. Like the online stuff

like going from I'm I am honestly worried about

the online community for the PlayStation 4 Do

you have any idea how excited I am about the

online community for PlayStation 4? You know,

why? Have I told you my theory of why I'm excited

about it? Well, can you hold it for just one

second? Yeah. Okay. The thing with the PS, with

the 360 is everyone came, it was, one, it was

cheaper, and two, it came with a headset. Everyone

had a headset, so everyone had a voice online.

And... Not only that, it was cheaper, so more

parents thought that being the cheaper system,

it was just better to buy that for their kids.

So I understand why there's a lot of 12 -year

-old racist pricks. I get that. It's also one

of the reasons why myself and my friends, I know

Daner did it too, we started utilizing the Xbox

Live Party Chat. Modern Warfare 2 is actually

where we started seeing the chinks in Xbox Live.

You know, stuff like that when Microsoft gave

control over certain Xbox Live functions to developers

and wouldn't let us chat and wouldn't let us

do a party chat in multiplayer for Modern Warfare

2, which they reversed for Modern Warfare 3 because

we didn't like listening to those people. So

we ended up meeting a whole bunch of people on

Xbox on on the 360. As far as online with the

PS3 goes, when I've been online on the PS3 and

I've had my headset on, I've had a pleasant experience

on the PS3. I've had people like apologize to

me or just offer like tips and not yelling at

me for you know making a mistake and questioning

my sexuality all in the same sentence and I think

that's part one of the reasons for that is because

one the PS3 was so expensive to begin with so

really only adults could afford it and because

there wasn't a headset in the box again you had

to have a little bit of extra income to buy a

headset so you could have a voice. So I think

there was a little a certain level of maturity

that came along with owning a PlayStation and

being on the PlayStation Network and I'm a little

worried that that might not carry over to the

PlayStation 4 because now the PlayStation 4 is

in the same position that the Xbox was in or

the 360 was in where it's cheaper and it comes

with a headset. So I'm a little concerned that

we're gonna be rapidly hitting that mute button

really quick I'm less concerned because of the

fact that they're somewhat doing away with And

I know the gamer tags and the anonymity of everything

because your real name is going to be put forward

which in my opinion you don't have that Persona

to hide behind. Okay. I I'm excited for that

feature. I really am except I've been reading

a lot about it and it works. So you can, I can

still friend you, okay? And I can request to

see your, you can have the system set up for

your real name, but I won't be able to see it

unless I request, request from you to be able

to see it. Like you have to allow me to see what

your real name is. Which is kind of, that's kind

of a bummer. Cause I would totally put my real

name out there because I'm not, I'm generally

not a dick online. Other than the fact that I

mute a lot of people because I don't like listening

to music in the background. Except for when you're

dick -alidrant and drinking. Dick -alidrant,

yes. I'm debating it if I want to drink on Friday

night or not. You want to sully your first evening

with it? Why not? Shouldn't it be pure and sensual

and just, you know, how a first time should be?

What is this, high school? Yes. Should I get

candles? Scented candles out? Put them all around

the house? Yes. Okay. This is very white. All

right, last ones. Dragono says, I could listen

to an entire episode of you all bashing the Wii.

It's hilarious. Great podcast, guys. Surprised

by many of the winners. As were we, as you probably

heard. I wasn't. Oh, that's because I tabulated

the results. King of Kongs also chimes in with

Top 100 Altered Geek and Generation Awards. Man,

I can't keep up with you guys. And then, you

know, Steve says we aim to please and King of

Kong lets us know that we've succeeded. So, Danner,

now that we've lost two of the four hosts here,

do we want to pick a game of the generation?

Just you and I? And I have issues with me and

you. Just picking the game and just saying it

just making a choice because of the fact that

I'm very much under the impression that Games

Something that's gonna be important to you isn't

gonna be as important to me. It's all about the

gaming experience when it comes down to it because

if I go purely off of What was my favorite game?

What did I have the most fun with and what do

I feel was my? best experience we're not giving

it to borderlands i wasn't going to say borderlands

i was going to say i would say fallout 3 was

my favorite game my personal favorite game of

this entire generation was fallout 3 because

i had more fun and i put more time and just enjoyed

all the experiences i had with that game more

than anything else's entire generation All right.

Well, why don't we make that the question then?

Let's do that. All right. So you guys want us

to pick a game of the generation the game of

this past console generation and we want to do

that but Daner and I don't feel like we can represent

an adequate slice of people's opinions so in

the comment section why not let us know what

you think the best game of the generation is

and We'll take a look at what you guys submit

and maybe we'll pick one or maybe we'll just

pick one of our own. So you guys have a week

to get that done. If you want to do that, you

can get in touch with us. You can comment on

our parent site at geekcastradio .com or you

can send emails to us at feedback at geekcastradio

.com. If you listen to us on iTunes, please head

on over there and leave us a review. Five stars,

please. But one star only if you have to. So,

you can find myself, Michael Powers, on Twitter.

Oh wow, I need to update this. You can find myself

on Twitter and the PlayStation Network at BoothNinja81.

Danner, where can they find you? You can find

me on Twitter at Art Danner or on the PlayStation

Network at x51themachineman. You guys can find

Sean Z on Twitter at Sean Z Brown. You can also

find him on Xbox Live at weapon87. Danner, where

can they find Joe? They can find Joe at JoeReadGeek

on Twitter. You can also find him on Xbox Live

or on PlayStation Network. It is Vilefire with,

well, it's Wildfire with two lowercase v's making

the W. V -vilefire. V -vilefire. Until next week,

you are not ready. Pixels in the animation has

now left the Mushroom Kingdom Pizons to enter

the realm of Hyrule in episodes 16 through 20

of PETA. Join TV's Mr. Neil and TFG1 Mike as

they are going through the classic, and I actually

have my fingers in the air and making air quoties

when we say classic, Legend of Zelda the animated

series. This time around a special guest joins

the guys for the Zelda reviews. It's the famed

Ender from Radio Free Cybertron. And the pole

bag. So tune in and help us find the pixels in

the animation, which you can find on iTunes and

www .geekastradio .com. Excuse us, listeners.

Hello and welcome to Off the Cuff episode 37.

As always, I'm your host, Michael Powers. This

week, as always, I am joined by... Are there

Danner? Hi. And that's it. Hi. No one else is

here. Hi. Oh wait, I think Danner is going to

stretch his acting chops and fill in for Sean

Z and Joe this week. I'm going to be honest.

I just came from the gym. I don't have the energy

for that. I feel like part of that is a lie.

It is not. It is absolutely not. You were at

the gym? Yeah. Oh. More power to you, sir. Yeah,

I did about 30 minutes on the elliptical. I lifted

weights for 20 minutes, and then I did the exercise

bike for about 20 minutes. And everyone's tuned

out of this already 90 -minute podcast. Hey,

I gotta do something from all the sitting I did

all weekend playing PlayStation 4, so... All

right, so if you're still here after listening

to episode 36 Thank you As I said in the intro

for that episode I was lazy because I really

wanted to play with my PlayStation 4 and I couldn't

make myself find the time to edit episode 36

so 36 and 37 have been smashed together into

a giant sized episode. Thank you for still listening

On this episode, Dan and I will be discussing

briefly, maybe, the same way we just did for

the PlayStation. We'll be discussing the launches

of the Xbox and the Xbox 360 leading into the

Xbox One. And depending on how fast that goes,

maybe we'll be discussing a little bit of our

experience with the PlayStation 4. So with that

in mind, let's get started. The original Xbox

was released on November 15th in 2001. It was

part of the sixth generation of gaming consoles.

It obviously competed directly against the PlayStation

2 and Nintendo's GameCube. Kind of trying to

remember how we did it last on the last episode,

given that it was a week ago and so much has

happened, but I believe we started out... by

going around saying what was our first experience

like the first time like what was your first

thought about the xbox when you first heard about

it um and being that dan are you're the only

one here i'll go ahead and start with you um

where were you the first time you heard about

the xbox god uh do you remember I remember it

because I was working at the movie theater and

if I recall correctly, the Xbox and the GameCube

launched on the exact same day. I think. I think

it was either the same day? I'm fairly positive

because there was a midnight launch. I remember

working at the movie theater and the GameStop

It's located directly in front of the movie theater

entrance. I should say limiter is the software

etc. That was located in the the mall Directly

across from where the entrance of the theater

was was doing a midnight launch of the GameCube

Which I was very much aware of and the Xbox which

I was like meh Microsoft trying to get into the

gaming market It looks like I know there were

three three days in between them November 15th

and November 18th Okay, so that really close

If there was maybe they were doing the Xbox launch

and I was actually over there inquiring more

so about the GameCube launch at the time you

were that guy I was that guy so I just I Was

intrigued, but I was uncertain of it, but I think

that was how a lot of people we're treating it

they're like because typically it's been a japanese

asia has been producing these systems oh here

come the americans trying to get into the video

game market what are they possibly going to do

um that was kind of my mentality is being a nintendo

fan boy well i shouldn't say and i've made this

Distinction many times. Yes. I was an Nintendo.

Yes. I was Sony I have a game fan. I'm not a

company fan. I'm not a company guy. I'm a game

fan I go where the game I get the most out of

the games And to me I just Didn't know much about

the Xbox didn't know a whole lot Eventually that

generation I did end up I bought a ps2 And then

I was gifted for one of my birthdays I got a

GameCube and then when I started working at GameStop

that was one of the first things I did was buy

an original Xbox. After it had been out for a

few years. I myself have never owned an Xbox.

The Christmas that they all came out... I have

three cousins. Two of the cousins and myself,

we all asked for GameCubes for Christmas. My

other cousin asked for an Xbox, and we all thought

he was the craziest person on the face of the

planet, because why would you want, kind of what

you were saying, why would you want something

that wasn't proven? For some reason to me, like...

I had the same mentality about the Xbox as I

had about the TurboGrafx -16 or the Neo Geo.

I don't think I've ever experienced those systems.

I'm aware of them. I know that they exist. I

don't think I've ever actually handled one of

them. To me, they were the rich kid systems.

Regardless of that, for me, video games is always

Nintendo Sega. You know, then PlayStation was

the upstart. So it became Nintendo Sega PlayStation.

And but then again, as we said, that's all, you

know, Eastern, you know, developers and hardware

manufacturing and stuff like that. So. That kind

of that kind of worked for me, even when like

Sony first, you know, we talked about this on

the last episode or earlier in this episode that

when Sony first showed up, it was like, what's

going on? You know, who are these people? Right.

Yeah. It was kind of the same thing, but there

was definitely this weird vibe because especially

because it was Microsoft getting into who's Microsoft

you know they make computers and really crappy

operating systems who are they to jump in and

dictate games I remember the first time Ever

heard about the Xbox was in an electronic gaming

monthly I like an e3 because I remember Microsoft

hired these guys and like suits to carry around

Metal briefcases that had like project X written

on them It was just like a marketing ploy like

they hadn't even shown off the Xbox yet it like

they were those silver like like bomb code cases

you see in movies And they had like an X embossed

on them and in the middle they had a green dot

And they were like wearing like men in black

outfits and they had the suit the the case like

handcuffed to their wrist as like a marketing

thing and then I remember the next time they

saw it and to a certain extent these they were

they these objects were kind of placed in the

first Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox which was one

of the concept designs for the Xbox was actually

an X. Do you remember that? I do. And those are

actually used as keys in Ninja Gaiden. And I

was, you know, a PlayStation. I was big into

PlayStation 2. I was excited for the GameCube

because I was a Nintendo fan still. And it just

it was weird that they That this Microsoft was

jumping in here and I didn't know what I didn't

know what to expect They didn't have anything

that was like jumping out at me Which brings

us to the next part of any launch, which is the

games, right? Yeah You've got Dead or Alive 3

You've got amped freestyle snowboarding You've

got fusion frenzy. You've got project Gotham

racing and jet set radio future and there's another

one Geez what's that game? I can't think of Help

me out here. There's been like six of them Something

combat of all something something to do with

like angels like rings and space And there's

a flood I Don't know I don't know but so What

was your first What was your first experience

with like the the the Xbox so like we know that

you went to the store on On the launch and you

were that guy asking about a completely different

system When's the first time you were actually

able to sit down get that massive massive controller

in your hands And play a game I never had the

massive controller in my hands never I think

the first time I played it was after the s -type

came out And I played Halo multiplayer. And I

wanted to say to this day, I've never played

the single player campaign in the first Halo

game. I've only played multiplayer in that game.

So you didn't know anyone in like school or anything

like that that picked up an Xbox? I was in college

at that point in time and nobody I knew was playing

Xbox. Huh. Well, I don't know. For some reason,

that surprises me. College was primarily PlayStation,

PlayStation 2s. I didn't really know anybody

that had Xbox. And then the Dorms, there was

a lot of original NESs. A staggering amount of

original NESs. What I'm looking for, and I don't

seem to be able to find, is a price. I don't

remember them being cheap. Wasn't it like $2

.99? I thought they were more expensive than

that, but they could have been. Wow, thanks Wikipedia.

Dropping the ball on the freaking price. Way

to go. He's a piece. Okay, so... My first time

was that Christmas that I was telling you about

where my cousins and I we all got GameCubes and

then my one cousin actually got the Xbox and

I remember sitting down and he got I believe

he got Dead or Alive and Halo Now the one I remember

playing the most is Halo and I remember being

thrown off by the controls Especially getting

in a warthog for the first time Getting in a

war hog for the first time always sucks But now

that's like the default control scheme for like

cars and first -person shooters. Oh, yeah But

it's just it was really interesting at the time

The only other time I did anything Had any experience

with an Xbox was when I actually moved out to

Grand Rapids The guys that I moved in with when

I moved out there One of them had an Xbox and

they had hacked it to play SNES, NES, Genesis,

all those games. So from time to time I would

load up his Xbox and, you know, go through the

menus and start playing some older games. But

eventually I had one of my friends over and we

actually played through all of Halo cooperatively.

And that was right about the time that Halo 2

was coming out. That's pretty much my only experience

is with Halo and Halo 2 as far as the Xbox is

concerned because I still wasn't, even later

in its life, towards the end of it, I didn't

care for it. They still were not showing me anything

that was wowing me because there were even moments...

I am not ashamed to say that I think Metroid

Prime is a better first -person shooter or looks

better than Halo does. Oh, by far it looks better.

There's so many more... ...bind details in Metroid

Prime that actually make that world come to life

that is absent in a Halo game. Not to mention

there's a story in the Metroid series, and I

can't find the story in a Halo game to save my

life. There's a story, I just don't think it's

that solid. Oh no, what I hear is there's a story,

but you have to read a book. Oh, well. Why? What?

So anyways, I The whole reason I even bought

an Xbox was Knights of the Old Republic That

was the whole that was the only game that got

me to actually buy an Xbox And my Xbox never

worked right because it froze and crashed all

the time I remember being more frustrated with

my Xbox than my PS2, which is saying a lot for

that generation. All right. Well, I've had limited

experience with the Xbox and you've had some

experience with the Xbox. You want to move on

to the 360? Because God knows we're going to

beat that to death. Don't know how I don't know.

I don't know too much I can actually say about

the 360 without repeating stuff that people heard

about 45 minutes ago. Yeah So I apologize for

that in advance if we end up repeating things,

but that's what happens when you have a giant

sized episode and You have a launch of a new

console that I'm really excited to play so Screw

you guys and we're not talking about Xbox one,

right? So the Xbox 360 Same scenario What was

the first time you remember hearing about the

360 I I? For some reason I think you're gonna

have a better idea of when you remember hearing

about it because I think I had blinders on for

the 360 I think it for me I feel like it came

out and like I feel like it came out of nowhere

Because I was in this really weird place video

game wise when the 360 was announced So when

did you first hear about it what were your initial

thoughts on it I Started working at GameStop

at the end of life of the ps2 Xbox and Gamecube

I mean, specifically, I started... I basically

started around working there around the midnight

lunch of Halo 2, pretty closely. And by that

point in time, I worked for a while, I eventually

became assistant manager at the new store, and...

you know, E3 became way more on something I was

way more aware of working at GameStop. And, you

know, the closer to me that you follow the news,

the better you can inform the customers and the

better you can be at your job. And being informed,

I felt was a big part of working there. Because

I wanted to know what I was talking about. I

didn't want to be one of those guys who... You

didn't want to be the typical GameStop employee?

Well, there's the over -knowledge typical GameStop

employee which uses his supreme amount of douchiness

to sell stuff and then looks down upon everybody

for their opinions. And then there's the other

GameStop employees who have a base knowledge

and are actually the help customers. And then

there's the... Best buy people that work in the

game department, but they know absolutely nothing

about what they're selling So I was very closely,

you know paying attention to stuff and I you

know watch the announcements about the launch

of the or when they introduced the Xbox 360 and

the PlayStation 3 and How I just from listening

to things with them, I just really connected

with what was happening with the PlayStation,

I'm sorry, with the Xbox 360, and I was more

intrigued about the Xbox than I was about the

PlayStation 3, and I got really behind the Xbox

360 and started reading stuff about it and just

getting really into the system. So what was it?

Do you remember at all what drew you to it? Don't

remember I think it may have been because it

was the first one out of the blocks It could

be because I at that point in time. It was just

the perfect storm of I Pre -orders were really

really limited on the 360 and I working at the

store. I had the chance to get one right at launch

and I did preorder one right away and I think

a lot of For me as I ended up I sold my Xbox

and all my games and My ps2 and all my games

in towards my 360 Because at that point in time

right before the Xbox 360 launched the demos

for God of War 2 and 4, Final Fantasy XII had

just come out. Essentially killing all love I

had for the PlayStation 2 and killing the system

for me because I was so pissed by how terrible

the devil was for Final Fantasy XII and how God

of War 2 felt exactly like the first game and

didn't feel like it evolved at all. I just automatically

decide I'm done. I'm ready for the next generation.

But I held on to my Gamecube, which I still have

in my Gamecube. But I was just like, you know

what? I'm done. I want to move on to the next

generation. I want a head -to -head and like

being at the forefront of something and being

there on day one and just riding the wave on

in. So that, I think, was kind of my thing. I

think it was also, it was hyped up because I

think all of us in the store were getting 360s.

Like, we all talked to each other and knew it.

And I think it was more just a group mentality

type of a thing. And a lot of it had to do also

with the fact that working at GameStop, we were

so burned out on the PS2. Poor customer service

from Sony at the time, the massive amount of

hardware failures that they had. And I think

for those of us that had to deal with that on

a daily basis, we were just done and ready to

switch to a different, just a whole different

company. And wanted to distance ourselves as

much as possible from Sony and get in. Getting

better with me with Microsoft I think that's

really what it was is we were just really fed

up with Sony at the store store level and retail

level All right Well, like I said for me with

the 360 I I was in this really weird spot in

my life where I wasn't gaming all that much And

I've talked about this before on the show It

was 2004. I moved back out to Grand Rapids so

I could be with my girlfriend at the time and

I was trying to be responsible with my money

because I was taking care of myself and I kind

of shut out anything extra. If I couldn't consume

it from the internet, I probably wasn't... Like

as far as articles and stuff goes, I probably

wasn't paying attention to it and I wasn't reading

a whole lot of video game blogs because I didn't

want to get sucked down the rabbit hole that

is video games for me. It wasn't until. I want

to say it was like sometime in 2000, it had to

have been sometime in 2005. I was the first time

I can remember someone mentioning to me that.

In my presence, an Xbox 360 was working at the

theater. And I think it was a conversation between

you and Shepard. Yep. And I didn't really, I

don't know if I had anything to say because I

didn't know anything about it. I just, obviously,

I knew that I wasn't going to be getting one,

not because I didn't want more money concerns.

even if i had the money i probably wouldn't have

because i wasn't a fan of the xbox um and that

was like it i but i remember like i still do

remember reading articles about the playstation

3 and what sony was attempting to do with it

i remember watching their e3 conferences um with

the with the playstation 3 uh i remember the

360 i didn't watch it but i remember the 360

had that awful MTV announcement with Elijah Wood.

Yeah. But I never watched that. I didn't watch

it. I just I heard about it. I think our biggest

issue at the time was when Sony came out and

started talking PS3. They had this attitude about

them that were Sony. Our system's gonna be 600

bucks People are gonna pay it because we're Sony

that was the entire mentality of e3 for them

that year which Come this year and to see the

to me that's what's funny about This the new

generation versus the old generations. I feel

like there's been a major role reversal between

Sony and Microsoft Think is a total 180 because

the attitude when the 360 and the ps3 launch

Were flipped for the two companies and now it's

completely the other way Microsoft's the arrogant

bumbling idiot and PlayStation 4 is the Were

your buddies where your pals were gonna listen

to you guys were doing what you want us to do.

We're bringing you the gums Yeah, we're bringing

the games. They're more focused on the stuff

that the hardcore wants, I feel. Their message

is better. Yeah, and where Microsoft has now

turned into, we're more interested in giving

you a media machine than giving you a gaming

machine. So it's... I just... And it was completely

reversed back then. I think that's why, I mean,

at GameStop store level, I mean, we were super

down on the PS3 and we were just, we were relentless

at driving people away from that machine. Our

store was the lowest selling Sony store for PS3

merchandise, hardware and software PS3 sales.

We were the lowest in our entire district because

Everybody that worked at that store was an Xbox

guy. See, I totally agree with what you're saying

about Sony. Especially, I rewatched their E3

conference before this year's E3. I found it

on YouTube and rewatched it. And it was like

night and day differences. I rewatched it after

their February announcement of the PlayStation

4, but before their E3 conference. Night and

day difference in the messaging. and just watching

the announcement of the PlayStation 3 there was

like they almost had like the fable disease where

it was like they announced all this stuff that

the ps3 was going to be able to do and it's got

down to the point where they pretty much said

the ps3 was going to cure cancer i ran folding

at home for a long time um i Okay, they had all

these features in 2005 that they announced that

it was gonna do this, it was gonna do that. It

was gonna do all this stuff. And then, for the

next year, they started saying, okay, it's not

gonna do that anymore. Okay, it's not gonna do

that anymore. It was fable, it was fable all

over again. It was the whole Peter Molyneux syndrome.

And... So I totally agree with you, and I thought

the price point of 500 and 600 bucks for a system

was outrageous. But if I remember correctly,

I think the 360 was $399 and $499, wasn't it?

Or did it start at $399? Wait, for who? The 360.

Didn't it start at $399? I think it was at $399.

And wasn't the hard drive one $499? I think so.

Wow, we're really bad at this. Okay, wait a minute,

no, sorry. The 20 gigabyte premium model, sorry,

was 400 bucks. The core unit was 300 bucks. And

this kind of goes back, I remember this being

a thing with the 360, which was the fact that

you had, all of a sudden you had two SKUs. Yep.

And it splintered your market. Nobody wanted

the core system Well, but they couldn't but see

they couldn't just make games that Needed the

hard drive like they had to be able to run on

the core system in case someone grabbed that,

you know which hindered for a little while anyways

hindered some game development on the 360 for

me My first actual experience with a 360 And

this kind of doesn't jive with events in my head

very well. It was 2006. In fact, it may have

been 2006. I'm not entirely sure what happened.

I remember I came home, it was over the summer,

and I went over to my cousin's house and he had

one. And I was watching him play Oblivion. And...

I asked him if he had Geometry Wars and he was

like, no, I don't know what that is. So even

though I didn't know about what the 360 was,

I was aware of what games were coming out for

it. And I told him, you know, I said we need

to go in the arcade store and I don't think he

had ever been in there. So we went and downloaded

it. And like that was, Geometry Wars was probably

my first 360 game. And I don't really think there's

a better way to be introduced to the 360 and

what it can do because Geometry Wars is a beautiful

game. It's a lot, I mean, I don't, visually it's

not that different from, well visually it is

different from Resogun because it's a different

art style, but there's still like really good

examples of what can be done with the system

as far as particle effects go. And it wasn't

until... I told this on the last episode or earlier

episode it wasn't until like the fall of 2006

when I had a new job I had some money and I had

an HD TV that I was in the mood or in the market

for an HD console and the the ps3 had just come

out but it was 600 bucks I didn't have 600 bucks

and Circuit City ran a special on the on the

20 gigabyte model that Thanksgiving for like

350 bucks with a game. And I ended up getting

a game for free somehow. Not entirely sure how

that worked out. So now. Did you sign up for?

For me, in my opinion, live is the best thing

about the Xbox. Xbox Live is. And I'm not talking

about. Like Netflix and Hulu and all that stuff

because I think the fact that that's all behind

the paywall is bullshit But what Xbox live does

really well in my opinion is getting you into

games with your friends Did you sign on with

that from the get -go On Xbox Live? Yeah, like

when you got your 360 or on Xbox. Did you have

a live account on Xbox and take it over? Yeah,

I did because I... Man, did I? I think so. Yeah,

I'm pretty sure I did. I remember you telling

me a story about how you lost your... You weren't

able to transfer your gamertag. Oh, okay. I did

not. It wasn't on Xbox live right at the beginning

because I think I played it for I Want to say

I played it I think for the first three months

and then finally when I got an Xbox live account

I Logged on and tried to use the gamertag I had

been using in the system and then it told me

that it wasn't I wasn't able to use it on Xbox

live because it had been Taken or was registered

to somebody else now and I was like what the

hell I had an original Xbox account. What the

hell's going on? So that was bothersome to me

And then I isn't until I had to start over with

a new name which was fine Because I think my

original was weapon XII and then I had to actually

switch it over to Weapon 1 -2. Which was a little

annoying to me. But I got over it, it's fine.

Not angry about it still. No, I'm never angry.

So angry I'm not getting in this box one. So

yeah. Alright, so yeah, live, and for me I didn't

experience, I experienced live once at our friend

Andy's house. He had me over one night and we

played Halo 2. Was 360 with Xbox live? That was

a hoot for what it was But it wasn't until your

your first diaper party I went out there we played

Gears of War and was it Call of Duty 2? Or 3?

Anyways went out there for that and I was sold

on the idea of multiplayer. When I got back home,

I immediately signed up for Xbox Live. And I

never looked back until... I had an Xbox Live

account all the way up until this past September

when I just realized that I wasn't going down

the Xbox One route. So I just let it lapse and

I never looked back since. Some of the games

that came out for the Xbox 360 at launch We have

Amped 3 We have Call of Duty 2 We have Condemned

Every Party FIFA 06 Gun Cameo NFL 06 NBA 2K6

Sorry I was sneezing It's because there's more

than that. NBA 2k6, NBA Live 06, Need for Speed

Most Wanted, the first one. NHL 2k6, Perfect

Dark Zero, Peter Jackson's King Kong, the official

game of the movie. Project Gotham Racing 3, Quake

4, Ridge Racer 6, Tetris, the Grandmaster Ace.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 and Tony Hawk's American

Wasteland. Daner, I didn't have one at launch,

but you did. I did. What did you play? I played

American Wasteland. It was terrible. Gun was

also not great because it was pretty much just

an upgrade. But both American Wasteland and Gun

were just ports of the PS2. Xbox versions with

better graphics, but I want to say somehow in

American Wasteland they actually ended up taking

content out of the 360 version. So actually the

360 version had less going on in it than the

Xbox and PS2 versions, which was a little weird.

Call of Duty 2 was pretty much was the first

game like I bought and kept. Because being a

GameStop employee, I actually had the ability

to check out any game I wanted also. Call of

Duty 2 was like, it was my first real venture

into Call of Duty. I dabbled a little bit with

the PC version and really liked it and played

Call of Duty 2 and just fucking loved the game.

I Just that got me into Call of Duty and I've

been pretty much into Call of Duty ever since.

And then Cameo was a glorified tech demo for

this system. I always refer to that every single

system seems to have in launch with that platformer

game that is a more so this is what the system

does type of a thing. Like Uncharted? Like...

Knack? Oh yeah, Knack, Uncharted, Uncharted,

Golden Abyss. Yeah, I know what you're talking

about. Yeah, it's that one game that does all

the things that the system does basically to

show off the system. That's kind of what the

game there for. That's what Cameo was essentially

to me. It was a glorified tech demo to see, look

at how many things we can put on the screen at

once. Look at what you can do with our controller.

Look at what the Xbox 360 does. This is the experience

we're going to bring to you. It was just a big

glorified tech demo. Perfect Dark Zero is not

a great game. I had the most convoluted storyline

I think I've ever seen in the game and it had

the absolute worst most pointless boss fight

I think I've ever come across in a game. The

final boss fight is just a joke. The only cool

thing about Perfect Dark Zero was the fact that

you could program bots into the multiplayer.

Project Gotham was pretty cool for a racing game,

but I Like most wanted way better. I played the

tar out of most wanted That's right. I played

a racing game and I played it a lot Literable

so was a lot of feeding in that system But that

was probably the the one and only need for speed

game that I really really got into and I played

a lot of I Didn't play any of the sports. It's

a lie. I played NHL 2K6, which was pretty good.

It was a high -key game. I didn't play any other

sports games. What else was the non -sports titles?

Ridge Racer, Tetris, Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk.

I think you covered about all of them. Did you

play King Kong? I didn't play King Kong. And

Condemned. Oh, God. I can't believe I'm forgetting

them. King Kong, for those of you that don't

remember, Peter Jackson likes video games. Peter

Jackson loves Beyond Good and Evil. Peter Jackson

got the guy who did Beyond Good and Evil to make

his game. I don't understand what the hell, I

don't even understand how to get through the

first level of Peter Jackson's King Kong, the

video game, the official video game of the movie.

It was a fairly pretty looking game. But it was

not a great game. It was very forgettable. Hence

the reason them both. You probably don't remember

it. Are you moving around? Incredibly forgettable.

A little bit. Okay, because it's coming through

on the mic. I blame the wood. Okay. Okay. Condemned

though. Condemned I would say is by far, I don't

think it was really appreciated when it came

out. I don't think I discovered it until probably

a year or two years after the launch of the system.

But I loved Condemned. It is such a great game.

It is so creepy and just so well done. And the

main characters voiced by Greg Gruenberg, which

I also thought was somewhat interesting. But

that game was great. That was by far probably

the best launch game for that system, but I don't

think people knew a whole lot about it Because

it was kind of a horror genre style murder mystery

Kind of straddle the line between like an investigatory

cop game and A horror game Awesome game awesome

awesome game. I still to this day it's Probably

the only game from the launch that I still think

kind of holds up in a relevant game. I think

you could pretty much dismiss most everything

else at the launch, but Condemned is a wonderful

game. All right. The graphics don't hold up at

this point in time. I will say that the graphics

will not hold up, but it is a great, very well

done game. All right. Well, it seems like we

really enjoyed the 360. It would seem that way.

I think we've kind of got burnt out at the end.

Well, I think for me and for you both, Borderlands

2 is kind of the final nail in the coffin for

the 360. I don't know if I could. Well, OK, I

don't know, because I think if we had I think

that, I don't think playing 360 on the PS3 would

have been any better. And when we had sat down

to play Borderlands, we didn't really know, the

Xbox One and the PS4, they weren't like a thing

yet. For me, what I was transitioning into, it

wasn't all roses and, you know, wine and roses

for the 360. There was a massive dark cloud over

top of it. Which instead of a dark cloud is more

like a red ring of death. Yes. Were you ever

affected by this? Yep. How many times? Once?

Once. Then twice. Was it before or after they

had done their... Once under warranty. I was

literally a month away from being out of warranty

when it did the first time so it was oh I had

his lunch system and it went out a month before

the three years was up And then I got it replaced

and then that one lasted probably I want to say

about another It was long enough to be just out

of whatever the next warranty was that they gave

me because I only think they give me a year And

I I actually had to go to a GameStop and then

trade it in and then buy a core system. And I

got one of the last systems with the Falcon chip

in it right before they switched over to the

new model, the slim line. So I'm still rocking

an original style 360. Even though my distray

only wants to open about 10 % of the time I For

me I was hit with the red ring Right after it

was fall of 2007 I'd had it for about a year

and I remember it was right about right around

when Orange box come out in fact no Back up the

demo for Call of Duty 4 Had hit with the three

with the three greatest maps ever which are overgrown

vacant and crash I remember playing that constantly

for hours And I remember I came home from work

one night working at the theater it was like

10 p .m. Got home. I was super excited to jump

on. I think I was playing with you and Jason

at the time. Super excited to get down to business.

Went to turn it on. Red ring. I had no idea what

to do. I kept trying to turn it on, turn it off,

unplug it, plug it back in. You know, go through

all the steps. Long story short, I ended up calling

Xbox customer service at 10 p .m. Amazingly somebody

was actually there most places when you call

tech support You know, they're like you have

to call back between these business hours I would

I was happy to talk to anyone that spoke English

At 10 p .m So I ended up getting I ended up having

to send it in and I it was gone for Two weeks,

I think. And then I got a system back. You know,

you don't get your system back when you send

it in. And then that system immediately began

scratching at my discs. Because I remember I'd

gotten Orange Box and I was playing Orange Box

and eventually Orange Box wouldn't play anymore.

And I was like, what is going on? Turns out I

had been putting rings in my discs. So I was

able to send it back and... Another two weeks

went by and I got another system back But by

this time I had already made up my mind that

you know what? Maybe it's time that I look at

the PlayStation 3 because Sony was just getting

ready to drop their price to 399 for the 40 gigabyte

model and You know I I was I have Gaming magazines

with uncharted coverage in it from when Elena

was a brunette I still have them, but Uncharted

was on my radar. I was kind of skeptical of it

because it was a Naughty Dog game and I'd never

played any of Sony's first -party stuff. But

the system that I use to hang out with my friends,

and yeah, that kind of makes me sound like a...

Lame guy that I use you know video games to hang

out with my friends, but the problem is you know

My best friends don't live by me. You know So

we use you know video games to hang out and stuff

like that But I was you know in a month since

I was actually able to play a game. I was like

I'm done with this I Got my 360 back, and I use

it for every once in a while I still still use

it a great amount luckily one of the things that

Microsoft did that fall with a firmware update

was allow you to install your games to the hard

drive which alleviated one it alleviated a lot

of the noise and two it alleviated any heat that

was generated by the cd drive which also kept

the system a little cooler so it wouldn't melt

itself to death so as soon as they allowed me

to start installing games the hard drive i never

played a 360 game without installing it ever

So when people complain about load times and

all this stuff I don't even think about it because

I I had to do that with my 360 anyways I had

to install every freaking game That being said

I have I did trade in my white 360 Or actually

no I did not I gave my white 360 to my sister

And I bought another black one because I hated

having a black ps3 and a white 360 at my entertainment

center. Lame. I hated it. I hated it so much.

Faceplate, man. Faceplate. Well, it was... I

couldn't do that. I can't. No, I could not do

a black faceplate with a white... I would know

it's there. Anyways, what's really funny is I

bought the... I had an original... I had the

40 gigabyte... PlayStation 3 which was you know

gloss black in my entertainment center, and I

had a matte black 360 and That kind of you know

they're both black they both look nice But that

kind of it on a subcon deep deep deep subconscious

level that I wasn't really aware of all that

often Except for when I was dusting. I was like

man. I really wish they looked the same and then

You know Sony came out with the PS3 slim which

had a matte black finish on it So I was like

I'll go get that and I did so I ended up buying

a PS3 slim. I think I actually traded in my Wii

and my original in my I traded in my 40 gigabyte

PlayStation 3 and my Wii for My PlayStation 3

that I have right now. Because at the time, they

had announced Donkey Kong Country for the Wii.

And I was like, oh, I love Donkey Kong Country,

I could play that. And then they said that you

couldn't play it with the Pro Controller. Or

the Classic Controller? I was like, I'm out,

forget, no, screw you guys, I'm out. So I traded

all that stuff in. And I got myself the... The

slim ps3 and I really like that but then they

released the Xbox with the connect and With the

glossy black oh my gosh, so whatever So yeah,

I I've gone through I have replaced my consoles

in the last eight years Myself without needing

to send them in I've had I My original Xbox gave

me way more issues than my PS3 ever did. I know

we've heard horror stories from you and from

Joe about other customers. And even my cousin

was getting like a discreet error on his, but

he actually got his repaired by Sony himself.

So he was able to get that resolved. I don't

know. But man, eight years. Can you believe it's

been eight years? I know. Man. Feels like it

was not yesterday. Well, I guess we can use this

to transition into talking a little bit about

the PlayStation 4. Because, okay, we're not,

okay, I just want to clarify something right

now. We're not trying to be biased here. We debated

covering the Xbox stuff at all because One we're

not getting none of us are getting an Xbox one

Yet yet, but I think a lot of that is Microsoft

one for it came down to two things for me one.

It was Microsoft's messaging. That was the big

thing Microsoft's messaging was not at all what

I wanted to hear And then it came down to the

price. And this is where it gets kind of interesting

and a little funny, I think. $500 with the Kinect.

And Sony had undercut them by a hundred bucks.

I couldn't do it. One, I didn't want the Kinect

camera. I really didn't. I would love there to

be an Xbox One that was 400 bucks that didn't

come with that stupid camera. But, at the same

time, I find myself more inclined to go and buy

the camera for the PlayStation 4 because it's

my decision. Do you know what I'm saying? They're

not forcing me to spend another $100 for a camera.

I get to choose if I want to spend that extra

$100, which means there's a feature, in this

case it's the live streaming for the PlayStation

4, that makes me want to go and buy that camera.

I think that's a better way to do something.

I don't like being forced into... I feel like

they're cramming Kinect down my throat. And Kinect

is not something that I want, but if they had

sold it separately and I had gotten my Xbox One

and I had turned on the live streaming and I

was like, man, this would be really great if

I had a camera. Boom. You would have just sold

me a Kinect. I feel like it could have worked

both ways. I just feel like Microsoft's messaging

was all out of whack. There is one Xbox One game

that I'm excited for, which is Titanfall, which

Is coming to the 360 so if I really want to play

it I can play it on there Granted that won't

be the best way to play it But I can still play

it So I just want to say we're not trying to

be biased here on off the cuff towards the PlayStation

4. It's just that we are I mean We don't have

a way of experience experiencing with the Xbox

one, so we're not And I don't see us really bashing

on the Xbox One other than what we can actually

say we don't like about it. Which at this point,

the only thing that I can say that I don't like

about the Xbox One is the messaging and the Kinect

camera. Those are the only two things I can say

that I don't care for it. Because one, I never

had a problem with their online policies or their

game policies or any of that stuff that they

laid out as far as games goes. The problem is

they just never showed any games that I cared

about. Yeah, and for me, I think it's yeah more

of the same I Think there's like a one game that

they showed that it was found slightly interesting

and that's a new insomniac game They're getting

and besides that I was like It looks okay But

the PlayStation 4 we know we're getting infamous

now. We know we're getting uncharted. I mean

Along with everything else Yeah, and it's the

only thing that can really deter me and at any

point in time actually need legitimately the

only thing if Microsoft comes out and announces

that Fallout 4 is exclusive, I'm gonna die a

little bit inside. I don't think that's gonna

happen, but that's the only thing that can make

me feel that I wouldn't have made a mistake.

So, we'll still talk about Xbox One news on the

podcast. It's just, we don't have one, so we

can't share any experiences about it or about

using it. And I don't really feel like running

my mouth off about something that I don't know

all that much about. So, personally, when we

start talking about next -gen stuff, it'll all

be from the perspective of the PlayStation 4

until we are able to rectify that situation.

All right, moving on. We have spent. By the time

this goes up, we'll probably spent like six days

with the PlayStation 4, at least in our houses.

Dan and I spent. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Playing with the PlayStation 4s. Dan. What was

your experience getting out of the box, getting

it set up, getting it going? How does that compare

to maybe the first time you set up your PlayStation

or your 360? The box seemed smaller and it didn't...

I remember pulling out so much crap crap in the

360. I just remember there being so much shit

to pull out of that box and with the PlayStation

4 it was like you open it up, there's your system,

there's your controller, there's your power supply,

there's your headset. There's like a card with

some stuff on it and some info and that was it.

I mean it was bare -bones basic This is the system.

We didn't pack in a lot of extra shit in it.

Here's your system. You're off you go Very simple

to hook up very quick to get online and to get

going and to get set up and it was just felt

so much simpler and less complicated than other

systems Unboxing other systems like when the

Wii you got to pull out slot number one And then

slot number two to get your things in this like

compartment out of this box and just it felt

so easy and so natural and so simple yeah, I

I I really like the fact that they used the same

cables from like the ps3 slim and the PlayStation

super slim Also, apparently the PlayStation 2

cables also work. As far as a power cable goes,

so if you have like a PlayStation 2 or a PS3

Slim or a Super Slim, you can actually just yank

that out of your entertainment center and plug

your PlayStation 4 right in and you're ready

to go. I was also a little impressed that I don't

know why I didn't think it would... wouldn't

have shipped with an HDMI cord, but I'm always

used to, you know, you get the standard AV cables

and anything better you have to go spend extra

on. And it was nice. I think this is the first

system I've ever gotten that it's like, hey,

HDMI cable. Yeah. Obviously, this is the first

system you've ever gotten. The Wii U did that

too, except the Wii U shipped with a nicer HDMI

cable. I was gonna say, Ed didn't actually use

the HG mic. Oh, neither did I, but I mean, I've

seen it. I didn't use it. I appreciated the effort

though. Yeah, no, it's there. They make sure

that you have everything you need to get the

best experience out of the box with it. Setup

was a snap, like you said. Like we said earlier

on this podcast, my wife and I, we picked up

two on launch day and I told her, I said, don't

expect both of them to work out of the box. Luckily,

both of them do. Which is awesome Setup was a

breeze as soon as you like even I think even

before you actually get to the actual like dashboard

The game is our the systems already downloading

that day one patch It was just I I felt like

was really good. We were up and running really

quick The only story I have to tell about it,

which is kind of a funny one is I didn't My wife

wanted to try Assassin's Creed before she went

to bed, so I was like, okay, I got it all set

up for you. We'll throw in Assassin's Creed.

And the game, the PlayStation 4, installs every

game to the hard drive automatically. You don't

have to tell it to do it, it just does it. And

we threw in Assassin's Creed, and you can see

a little loading bar go across the little icon

for it. So we went to go start playing it and

we get the you get the Ubisoft logo you get the

Assassin's Creed logo you get the Abstergo Entertainment

logo and then you get a black screen and the

drive just spins and spins and spins and Eventually

like a little notification pops up that says

DLC you failed to load Your drive just spins

more and I'm sitting there my wife's sitting

there and I could tell she's getting a little

annoyed me I've been through this before it's

kind of like I don't know what to expect so I

just have to see how this goes and maybe it was

still installing stuff in the background like

maybe it had done that thing where it installed

enough for me to start the game but not play

it yet because that's like a thing with like

when you download a game now it'll actually you

can actually start playing it while it's downloading

So I kind of thought that that's what was going

on except. I'm looking at a black screen. There's

no loading or anything like that, so I Got to

experience. What are the cooler things about

the PlayStation 4 you can actually drop jump

out to the dashboard and do other things While

a game is running I went into the store, and

I downloaded reso gun and That downloaded installed

while it was still trying to load Assassin's

Creed Went back in filled around with it. It

wasn't working Went and deleted the install because

it said that all 21 gigs of the game had been

installed to the hard drive and so I went and

uninstalled it and you know Went to reinstall

it and stuff like that to see if it worked. It

just wasn't working Finally I was like, you know

what? Let's put it in another one of the games

that I got to see maybe we have a bad disc and

I went and popped the disc out of the tray and

I flipped it over sure enough There is a giant

fingerprint on the bottom side of the disc. And

it was preventing the laser from reading the

disc to tell the game to start. This is why you

don't eat pizza and then wipe your greasy fingers

all over your game disc. I'm not entirely sure

what happened. My wife insists she didn't touch

the bottom of the disc, but I never handled it

myself. Bullshit. So I wiped it off real quick

and stuck it back in. Boom. Played just fine.

After that, everything worked except for Battlefield

4, which worked for the first day and then it

never worked again. It's a beautiful game when

it works. Oh my gosh, I can't get over... For

me, of the games that I have, Resogun, Need for

Speed Rivals, and Battlefield 4 are probably

the best looking games I've played so far. Were

you expecting games to look like this like? Were

you like were you expecting battlefield for like?

Way back like this this entire last year you

see the screenshots you watch the trailers online

you hear about people telling you that you know

Internet video can't show you how good a game

looks Were you expecting battlefield for to look

as good as it did no I wasn't I knew it was gonna

look good, but Yeah, and there's a night and

day, there's almost like this weird, I want to

say night and day, but it might not be that drastic.

There is a huge difference between Call of Duty,

Ghost, and Battlefield 4. Yeah. Like, Call of

Duty looks like a, it looks like a Call of Duty

game running at 1080p. Don't get me wrong, Call

of Duty still looks really good, but Battlefield

just, damn. Yes When you can get up next to a

leaf and it doesn't just turn into a texture

blob like you can see the the leaf like I I My

my mind was blown. I I now I can't wait to see

games like infamous watch dogs I Yeah, I don't

even know anymore But I I do We did try out the

twitch streaming or I did anyways I will be doing

more of that and as I said, I will be seeking

out a PlayStation 4 camera So you'll be able

to interact with me. You can find me on twitch

at twitch .com slash booth ninja 81 You can also

follow me on Twitter at booth ninja 81 because

it when I start a stream it out Automatically

sends out a link so you guys can check that out

if you have the time um i do like the streaming

feature stuff um i have not tried posting to

facebook which you have i tried to do a video

and i did not have any luck because i tried to

edit the video and then it's like okay you get

12 minutes and 37 seconds of video and then i

went to edit it and goes there's no video content

i was like what the hell i was like i didn't

really care i was just goofing around with it

so it wasn't something important even though

It was the first glitch I've run into at the

system which was I was playing assassins first

ten minutes into the game and Ran up a wall and

then fell directly through the wall and got stuck

inside the wall and had to reload the checkpoint

Which was like yay next generation All right,

what is your had you okay? We talked a little

bit about I talked a little bit about the controller

an hour ago on this podcast It's so beautiful

It just feels wonderful. I like it. I Can't tell

if you're mocking me. I'm not I I never I don't

gush about controllers ever and this is the first

one I'm just like it really feels like you're

holding anything. It just feels fantastic agreed

um so is there what's your favorite thing about

the ps4 so far like favorite game favorite feature

reso gun reso gun yeah i was gonna say reso gun

too it's the one it's the one game that i just

kept going back to like all weekend and I'm not

sure if that's because it's on the system and

I don't have to swap the disc out for it. I also

want to say I enjoy playing co -op way more than

I enjoy playing by myself, but it's still a good

single player game. But I got way more out of

the time that we played it than any other times.

We should try that again sometime. We should.

Yeah, I really liked Rezogun I Playing it though.

I'm hoping that Stardust HD gets an HD HD remix

The HD HD HD squared we're like maybe it'll be

Super Stardust full HD remix Because man well

You know 1080p is considered full HD. Yeah, and

I think that I think Super Stardust only runs

at 720 on the PS3, so I would like to see that

game come over. I just... I talked about this

a little bit before we started recording. You

never realize how slow, or I never realized how

slow the PS3 was and the 360 was until I got

the PS4. Yeah. Like, I... Eight years with something

you just expect it to be that way like if that's

not how it has to be I almost fear to go back

to play something on one of the older systems

just because it's the ps4 is gonna ruin me on

this I feel like if you went I feel like if you

went back to Like here's the thing The ps4 is

awesome, and it's fast and it's way faster than

like the ps2 the the PlayStation the ps2 the

ps3 and stuff like that But I feel like if you

went back to the Super Nintendo Like those games

are just as fast, you know like that because

they're cartridge based they're just as fast

It's just I don't know there's and there's no

menus. There's no extra overhead or anything

like that But the thing about this is like the

ps4 does a whole lot of stuff and none of it

seems to impact your gaming No, not at all And

I'm really excited to see where this like If

this goes for another eight years, just think

about, just think about for a second where the

360 started with its dashboard and its blades.

Oh, I miss the blades so much. And its lack of

Netflix and stream of media features and the

PlayStation 3 with its lack of everything. And

where they are now, seven and eight years later,

That's like The ps4 the Xbox one are starting

there, but like Like still like maybe maybe they're

like one year ahead Like we have them now, but

I think like technologically what technology

wise they're like a year ahead of the ps3 and

the 360 Yeah, but we have them now, so I'm just

trying to imagine where what they're going to

look like You know, seven, eight years from now.

Which, if you don't have anything else to add,

I have an excellent question to ask the listeners.

And then we can wrap this up. But there's a lot

of talk about this being the last console generation.

Do you guys think this is it? Or do you think

we will see another round of consoles within

the next decade? So just think about that for

a little bit. And if you want to, you can let

us know what you think about that. Or if you

got a PlayStation 4, why don't you friend us

up? We'll give you that information in a second.

You can friend us up. If you also got one, let

us know what games you're playing. Maybe we got

some of the same games and we can all play together.

But if you want to get in touch with us and let

us know about what you think about, is this the

last generation of consoles or about the question

that I can't remember right now from the last

episode. You can get in touch with us and comment

on our parent site at geekcastradio .com or...

send us send emails to us at feedback at ksradio

.com just put off the cuff and the subject line

and we'll make sure that we get to it gets to

us if you listen to us on itunes please submit

us a review of five stars if if you want to one

stars if you have to just let us know how we're

doing even if you think we're idiots we want

to know what you think so with that you can find

myself michael powers on twitter and the PlayStation

Network at BoofNinja81. You can also find me

on Twitch, like I mentioned earlier, at twitch

.com slash BoofNinja81. If you do send me a friend

request, expect a real name request to come back,

because that's really cool. I think that's one

of my favorite features so far. Daner? You can

find me on Twitter at art Danner or on PlayStation

Network at X with you on the machine then All

right. So with that This wraps up off the cuffs

first giant sized podcast Which was the PlayStation

and the Xbox one launch? So talk to you guys

next week peace