Playstation 4 Pro, 4K, and for your entertainment

While Nilay, Dieter, Lauren, and Walt make a Vergecast out of Ctrl-Walt-Delete, this leaves Paul to head the show this week with Chris Plante to talk about the other thing that happened on Wednesday: the Sony Playstation 4 Pro event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Feel like I should be, there's like music, I bet.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast. My name is Paul Miller. And I'm here with Chris Plant.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  What up?

• 0:16Speaker 00

  And this is the flagship podcast of The Verge Podcasting Empire. And this is a hostile takeover.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Goodbye, Neelai.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  Had some fun times. I would like to let everybody know that this podcast is brought to you by Scissor Vodka. Cut through the night. Miss you, Neelai.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Sad that we had to tie you up and bound you and put you on a boat.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  But we still care about your dreams for nightlife vodka brand. But so what happened, here's, here's the real true situation is that Apple is in San Francisco. And they're like, hey, come out over here for the Apple stuff. So a ton of really cool people like Neelai and Dieter and Lauren and Walt all went to San Francisco. And we recorded the podcast on a Thursday and they're not back yet. And we got to have a Vergecast. So what, what you need to do, if you want to hear people like Neelai Patel, my friend and boss, talk about Apple, who has actually seen the new Apple products, all of them.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Touch them, put the AirPods in his ears. You have to listen to Control, Walt, Delete this week.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  We're really like selling people away from listening to the next hour or so of the show.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Look, this show is going to be, it's going to be rebellious, renegaty, wild and unpredictable. But it's not going to be very much about Apple. So I just want you to know that there's a wonderful podcast that's part of the, the Verge Podcasting Empire, but not necessarily the flagship, that will be all about Apple. And so you could track that down. You should probably subscribe anyways. It's a great podcast.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  There's probably a chunk of the audience who are like, no Apple. Finally.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Finally, finally. Cause what Chris and I are going to talk about and why I've brought him here for this hostile takeover. Is Sony.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the only thing more controversial than what smartphone you use, video games.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, then this is, there's, there's drama here.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  There is.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  There's a little like mid-generation console war brewing. And there's choices to be made and priorities to, to establish. Are you, are you about gaming or do you just want home entertainment?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Right?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Is, don't you think, okay, so it's, Chris, what is the actual news?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Okay, so the news is, well, I guess I should set up with a little bit of Microsoft thing.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  To really throw off the Sony people. But Microsoft at E3 this year, the annual video game conference, uh, announced it had essentially two new video game consoles, the Xbox One S, which we've already reviewed on our site. It's available in stores. Um, it added HDR support and a little bit of extra power, but not like so much that I think it's a big thing and that's available right now. And then they said, hey, we're gonna release this thing called Project Scorpio. And it's gonna have like so many terra flops.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  That like you won't even know what to do with it. Like it's just gonna be the new hotness. Um, and people are like, cool, tell me more. And they're like, nah, let's wait. And like, we'll get to that in 2017. Okay, so that's, that's like the backstory you needed, right?

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  So then Sony, the rumors were rumbling as they're wont to do in this industry, that Sony had a thing called the PS4 Neo. And people are like, oh, the path of Neo. I remember that video game. If it's anything like that, promise entails.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  I remember Neo from The Matrix. And then I realized five years later that it's an anagram for one.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Huh, it's also Eon.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Man, five years after that, I learned it was an anagram for Eon.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Um, so people are like, oh, okay, cool, cool. And then the, this like Slim PlayStation four leaked ahead of all of this. So another console. So now there's like, we're just, we're overrun with video game hardware.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Which that's a regular thing. Like this is around the time when you make a smaller, cheaper version of your original. I, the, the PlayStation two Slim or smaller PlayStation two is, I think, one of the, the most beautiful pieces of hardware ever.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Took all the design kids.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  The lid is not well designed. Mine is busted.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  That's, yeah, that's fine.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Bring in an anecdote here.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  It's just great to look at, though.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  So Sony, uh, they come out on stage yesterday and they say, real quick, hey, there's a slimmer PS4. We're not even calling it a new thing. It's just the PS4.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Hmm, standard.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  It's slimmer. It's $2.99 now. It's coming out like next week, essentially. And that's like our standard thing. And people are like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And then they're like, okay, that PS4 Neo, it's actually called PlayStation four Pro. And it has 4K gaming, which is a big deal because we haven't really seen a console output at 4K resolution. That's a pretty big ask for a console, like graphic, nice graphics cards right now. Uh, that can be a struggle with some, you know, high end games. So this is like pretty exciting, I would say. And then they were like, also HDR, it will be available on this and all the Playstations.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  And here's where we're gonna like, it's just gonna start like sounding just like words and letters and acronyms being thrown all about. It'll be on all of them, but this one will have 4K, that that extra power, and it will make some 1080p games look good if you don't have a 4K TV. Oh, and also, it's coming out November 10.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  And it's $399, which was my surprise of the...

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  That just sounds like a $599, like, start, start fresh, high-power, spend all the money. But the $399 is, I mean, is Microsoft Scorpio with six teraflops? Sony's saying they've got four-ish teraflops. They've got a better, like, a new graphics card, and then they, like, oh, like, sped up the clock speed of the processor.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, it's weird right now. Like, my take on this, like, whole teraflops, which is more powerful? Is this like a generational leap? Which I don't think it is. I, Microsoft has, I think, kind of almost a bizarre advantage at this point, by so little being known about Project Scorpio or shown of its games, that it can kind of play with our imaginations of like, "Oh, well, the number's bigger, so it must look a lot better."

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  But really, we have no idea, on a technical level, how much better that system will look, or even really, how much better this system will look than the PS4 normal. There's, I would say, an abnormal amount of questions that are not going to be really answered until we get this hardware in our hands for ourself, because there's all sorts of technicalities.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was interesting watching the, the, I watched the livestream, and there was a lot of like, well, you definitely can't see any of the difference on this livestream that you're watching, but it's better. On 4K with HDR. Here's what HDR is like, but you can't see it unless you're here in this room right now, which apparently it did look good.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I don't know, to be like really frank, I'm pretty darn skeptical of especially the 4K claims. And the reason I say that is with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, that was the generation that we were promised, you know, 1080p true HD gaming.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  And we really didn't get it.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  And there were like two 1080p games ever made.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Like, that has been kind of the home of PS4 and Xbox One. And even then, like, there's the question of actually hitting 60 frames per second, which is, again, we're gonna get pretty technical in this podcast, but like, not a thing every game does already.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  And arguably, a more important thing for games than the resolution or even the fidelity and the fancy action on screen is making it really smooth.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to give you an idea of like, how tough this is for hardware that's available right now, Quantum Break is a visually beautiful game that was on the Xbox One, and it had to use some bizarre tricks to essentially fake 1080 to run okay. And like, that's for the hardware that's out right now. So we're talking like, to get beyond 1080 to 4K is a huge leap.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  To be clear, it's four times the resolution of 1080p. And you're not just, if you're doing a true 4K, which Sony made it clear, they aren't doing like, true actual 4K rendering, but they didn't make it exactly clear what they're doing. But if you're gonna render a game from scratch in actual 4K, your graphics card's gonna do twice, or four times the work, just because it's gonna make four times the number of pixels. But then also, the game's gonna need higher resolution assets, like the textures and everything.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  It's gonna need more RAM.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  So, yeah, everything needs to be about four times more powerful than what you need for 1080p. And this console is not four times more powerful. Than the PlayStation 4.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, I, I, I will like cushion that with like, there are obviously things that people, developers can do with optimization that go a long way. I mean, that's why, you know, even at the end of its life cycle, the Xbox 360 and PS3 were putting out games that looked, I mean, like Grand Theft Auto V, that looked really impressive with very little hardware to, to support it.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  But, yeah, I, the thing that I'm curious about is what, what's the trick? Because I have the, I have to have this for work. I don't want to sound like a snob right now. But like, I have like the highest end graphics card you can have. And like, even with that, on a PC, and this ridiculous, you know, hardware that's available to me, even then, running a game at maximum settings with 4K doesn't always work.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  And I'm guessing you make this decision a lot, if you, if you have that kind of setup. Hmm, should I run this at like 1080p max settings? Or should I boost the resolution and lower the settings a little bit? And I feel like Sony is presenting console gamers with that exact scenario. Because the, the PlayStation 4 Pro will, with certain games, will give you better graphics on a 1080p, like more detailed models or textures or, or anti-aliasing. Like, certain games that, that choose to optimize for 1080p will look better on, on 1080p. So do you want that, or do you want more pixels?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and here's where we're getting all sorts of funny language, and it starts to get complicated even more than it already is. They're saying that when you plug your console into the TV, it recognizes, it recognizes which TV it's plugged into essentially, what type. And it selects for you and it's unclear right now how much control you'll have over that. But then the other thing that's strange is they're saying that like the PS4 Pro won't be like I get basically making games run faster on a 1080 TV. So like the way I would say this is on with a PC, right? If I have a really high end graphics card, I could use the power that I'd use to, you

• 12:40Speaker 01

  know, push a game out at 4K at 30 frames per second to play it at like, I don't know, 90 frames per second at 1080. So it's much smoother is what I'm saying. But they're saying that you it'll allow for more stability with currently available PlayStation 4 games if you're playing games at 1080p, but that they don't plan on it making them actually run faster, which is bizarre. And it also makes sense because one of the reasons that I think Polygon actually wrote about this was will people who play multiplayer games with PS4 Pro have a competitive advantage?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Because if they had more frames per second on a multiplayer shooter, it's a smoother version of the game, which gives them an advantage.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  By stability, you mean like the game has decided that it's a 30 frames per second game, but sometimes on the PlayStation 4 standard, it dips a little below that when there's a thousand explosions. But the new PlayStation will still run it at 30 frames per second, but it won't dip below 30 frames per second. So that's still going to be.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  It'll be a lot is what they're saying. Yeah, it'll be, yeah, but I mean, they've specifically said that they do not want games to provide a or do not want the system to provide an advantage in multiplayer.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  I'm also guessing this isn't going to improve load times a lot. It's still got a regular hard drive in it. And I guess the processor is a little bit faster, but that's not really what. I mean, load times is mostly a hard drive issue. And I've noticed on the Xbox One, I've got like multiple Xbox. My buddy's got an Xbox One, I've got Xbox One, and my Xbox One always loads Overwatch levels slower. So that's like, that's something that I'm kind of wishing consoles would tackle right now.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, it kind of weirdly reminds me of smartphones where I feel like I'm, instead of just getting the basic features that I want, I'm getting like extra superficial almost things that I don't necessarily need. Like, I still want a better version of what I have. Like, for the smartphone, I would kill for a phone that just had a much better phone capability and a battery that lasted for two days straight.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And for a video game console, if I could like, I mean, you could technically do this by using your own hard drives. There's a whole technique to that. But like, cutting down load times, putting more RAM in, so like, open world games are huge. And like, allowing for like, better textures and putting that in larger open world games? That sounds great. Like, that was a huge headache that open world games ran into at the end of 360. So I don't know.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Sounds like you want a PC.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, that's why I have my PC, right?

• 15:28Speaker 00

  And that's the theory, right? That Microsoft and Sony are feeling a bit of the heat from PC gaming, which just keeps on being, kind of getting better in a lot of ways. Because it kind of gets things first. It gets VR first, it gets like, the open access stuff on Steam. It has Steam, you know, there's just a lot about PC. And then like, games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota are very PC-heavy. And then games like Overwatch are like, PC-preferred. Like, there's a lot of momentum behind PC gaming right now. And to wait another three years before the graphics got any better would be tough for them.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I think, I do think it is that. I think there's, it's, I would say kind of like half of that and half of people have a 4K TV and they don't know why. And they're like desperate for a reason to own, like make use of this thing that they have.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And if you can like get in front of people this holiday and you can say, hey, that 4K TV, you can play 4K games on it. And here's what, like, go to your store, see what 4K games look like. Finally do something with this machine, other than watch, you know, like the same however many Netflix series and handful of videos that are available on Amazon.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Um, or I mean, you could get a UHD Blu-ray player and spend god knows what on the expensive discs.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Speaking of.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Just, just again, to reiterate the current landscape, Microsoft has already released Xbox One S, which does 4K, does not do 4K games.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  It does do HDR.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  But only with specific games.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Oh, I didn't know the Xbox One S did HDR in games. Okay, um, it does do 4K Blu-ray.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yes, and the Sony PlayStation 4 and Sony PlayStation 4 Pro do not do Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  So if you want to buy something right now, your only option is something like that has new capabilities. Your only option is the Xbox One S. But for Christmas, you're gonna be choosing between 4K games and 4K Blu-rays, kind of. Unless you've already just made up your mind to be like into PlayStation or Xbox this generation. Like, if you're coming to this generation fresh, your choice is Blu-rays that are 4K or games that are upscaled to 4K and will actually probably look pretty great.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and, and both of them have 4K streaming, which, I mean.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Which is what Sony's been really pushing anyways.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I mean, if you live somewhere that doesn't have a really strong internet connection, Ultra HD Blu-rays might make sense. That's totally possible. But the market seems to be shifting towards streaming, and if you live in that area. That's probably not the worst choice, unless you're like a hardcore videophile and you're you're really gonna notice every difference and you have like, you know, a $10,000 TV. In which case, like, yeah, definitely.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  But if you're that crazy, you can buy like one of those like $1,000 4K Blu-ray players.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you can buy both Xbox.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you could just buy both. I mean, you are getting a lot for $400 either way.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Which is cool.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I think if you don't have either of these already, like, whoa, this is a pretty great time.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, for me, I went Xbox this generation and I've regretted it every month since because everybody else got a PS4. And so this is my chance to get a PS4. And also, I felt like Sony did not talk about this very much, and I'm not really sure why, so maybe you can tell me why. But the PlayStation 4 Pro is gonna be way better for VR.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, they kinda didn't go too deep into that.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  They mentioned like, one game has like double the resolution, and I heard double the resolution, and I was like, whoa.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna goof this up. So, go to theverge.com and read our PlayStation VR coverage, especially by Addie Robertson, the, I think, best VR reporter in the business.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  And on the planet, the most knowledgeable person about VR, probably.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Without a doubt. But, from what I believe I understand, is, again, Sony is using somewhat of like a trick to make VR work really well, and that it's essentially doubling the frames so that you don't get nauseous. Like, you need...

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Oh, like interpolation?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you need a certain number of frames per second while you're using VR for it to feel real, I guess. And, like, if you do it with like your, you know, high-end graphics card, there's all these graphics cards on PC that say they're VR-ready. They're basically saying, hey, we can hit the kind of threshold that you're gonna need on most games, in terms of output. But a PlayStation 4 original, obviously, is not as powerful as a brand-new graphics card, so they've used some kind of tricks to make it work. So my guess is that with that extra power that's on the PlayStation 4 Pro...

• 21:01Speaker 01

  It might get it closer to just doing what it needs to do natively.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Versus like using whatever kind of software trick they have come up with to make it work well. This is again, if it sounds like I am like confused, yes, I I am.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  I I I've only done a little bit of time with PlayStation VR, but it was a lot. If there's a spectrum that is starts with like the Gear VR and goes up to Oculus. Um, it was closer to the the Gear VR end as far as what I was seeing with my eyes.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, the I mean, the resolution of the screen itself is just.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  And there's there's something so convenient and relatively affordable about making your home console a VR machine. And it any improvement to to the graphics I saw could I for for me, put it over the edge.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  So here's the thing that I think will be good about PSVR and hopefully PS4 Pro makes it more enjoyable experience to use. Is the games like it's that simple, Res, Thumper, even Drive Club. There's, I think, 100 foot robot golf. There there there are a number of games that look really appealing. Um, and should in theory run easily on this hardware. And right now, that's what I crave with the like I I have this Oculus Rift sitting next to me and it's like not getting used. So I think that that might be the advantage there, but I mean, that has nothing to do with power or anything. That's just.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  We'll see. I don't know. That's a whole different mess that I feel like is approaching and only a month. And I I kind of haven't really heard much about. I'm just realizing.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  The the the games.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Or just PSVR like that's next month and I feel like I have not seen a ton of promotion from Sony. Maybe they felt like they needed to get the console announced and now they're going to like. Throw in the PSVR gear and start talking more about this before it's released.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Well, they like sold out like all their pre-orders and stuff, so maybe they feel like they just shouldn't. Shouldn't talk about it because it was just frustrating people.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very possible. They learned their lesson from when the Oculus couldn't push units through.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  Okay, anyways, yeah, so I'm I'm excited as a just a a human being who will probably get the PlayStation 4 Pro. That's kind of where I'm at overall, my verdict.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I think that like argument of, hey, this is a thing that like shows 4K things on your 4K TV. Is like a pretty compelling argument for a lot of people.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Um, including me, like, I don't know if I'll actually buy it, but it is, I, I would like to have something that is 4K on my TV. Other than, uh, what's the last thing I watched? The Get Down. I, I just watched that in 4K.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Oh, how was, how was that?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  It was beautiful.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  It's my full review.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Nice. Yeah, I, it always bugs me when I feel like I can't, I, I feel like the first time I ever saw 4K, I could tell. And like, sometimes when I've seen 4K, like streamed from Netflix or something like that, I'm not sure. It's like, wait, did I do all the settings right to make it 4K? It looks good, but it doesn't look.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the other thing is the first time you saw 4K, right? It was probably on a traditional older 1080p TV, guessing like you were at a convention or something. Next to a 4K TV showing 4K. And what I've found owning a 4K TV, the Samsung is just normal HD looks pretty good on it. Um, so when it does bump up, it's noticeable, but I'm not like, I, I, it's not like I have to have it, you know?

• 24:51Speaker 00

  You don't look like you, this doesn't feel like you're looking into a, that was my first impression. It's like, whoa, I'm looking into a window. That's showing me a Japanese garden, even though I'm in Berlin right now.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I can't say that I have that feeling too often. I have like a, oh, that looks really pretty.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  And then HDR, I feel like HDR is gonna be an uphill. I mean, I know it's a great spec to talk about, but man, that's hard to convince people that a thing exists.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really hard with HDR because like.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  It's like, well, you've been telling me that I haven't been seeing all the colors this whole time, like my, my whole life has been a lie.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Oh, and also there are two different versions of it and everything you use right now, uh, corresponds to different versions. So it might not even be working on your TV. Oh, and when it does, there's not a signal really that lets you know it's working.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Like that was, I, I, I tried to watch Marco, not Marco, is it Marco Polo? What is it? I think that's right on Netflix. Cause they were like, oh, this is the first HDR thing. And the whole time I'm like, I, am I seeing it?

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Is this, is this, is this really happening? There needs to be like, like a cool guy walks into the bottom of the screen and is like, "Hey, good job. You got 4K and HDR. You're doing it great. You're cool." You figured it out. "You're so smart and rich." "You deserve a big dog t-shirt. You're a big dog." Okay, well, let's bring Neelai back for an advertisement that he has pre-recorded.

• 26:23Nilay Patel?

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• 27:28Speaker 00

  And we're back. Thank you, Neelai, for that passionate rendition. Is that the right word? Passioned? Impassioned? Sure. Sure. I bet it was great, though. So that's basically all we wanted to talk about. Chris, do you, do you have any thoughts about Apple? And I know everybody's actually supposed to listen to Control, Walt, Delete this week, and I don't want them to not do that by us talking about Apple. But did you have anything that you wanted to share?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, I can talk about the video game thing, because that's all I really know.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, Mario.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Mario. Shigeru Miyamoto takes the stage. A quiet falls upon the audience. "I'm here to show you Mario," he says. I know.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Do you hear goosebumps?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  And then people are like, "Whaaat?" Yeah, dog. I totally got goosebumps. I was like, "I'll play that game."

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Um, for a while. I mean, here's the best thing about that announcement for me. They announced a game called Super Mario Run.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  And you hear that, and you're like, "Crap." They made a Super Mario Endless Runner game.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Like, every damn, like, intellectual property gets turned into on the iPhone.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Like, I bet, I bet I could find, like, a ver- like, an Endless Runner for, like, my bank.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Where I, like, collect, like, loans or something.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because apparently you work at the bank in this game. Um, but, but then they show it, and it's not that. It, like, actually looks like a pretty fun game. So that was, that was like, that was nice. That was a happy surprise. And, and it builds confidence for, they have a Fire Emblem game and an Animal Crossing game, uh, that are scheduled for sometime in 2017 now, I believe.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  Which, which sound like a, a, a much better fit. I mean, how, how is this Mario game supposed to control?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  That is a great question, with your thumbs. I have, I have, I have a theory about this.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Because I, I saw Mario go to the left and to the right.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I, I, I don't know if they... This is not true. This is like, some serious tinfoil hat stuff.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  So, everybody knows, this is 100% not true. But, I think, maybe there's an advantage to the game not controlling too well. See, I'll be like, "Man, I love this Mario. Sure would like it to control a little better." I better go buy a new Nintendo X when that comes out.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I do think truly they've said in a shareholder meeting that they don't plan on like helping to bring a hardware, like a controller to the iPhone. And I think that's like-

• 30:06Speaker 00

  They've considered it.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  I thought they said that it could happen, but they don't think that they would be part of it. I don't know, I could be, I could be wrong there, but-

• 30:14Speaker 00

  It looks like maybe there's an analog stick at the bottom, like a virtual analog stick.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  That makes sense. I mean, those have gotten much better. They're not as terrible as they were when the iPhone launched.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Maybe that's just a button to-

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Left, right button?

• 30:26Speaker 00

  No, like a, just a tap to jump. Although if there's tap to jump, then you don't need anything because you just touch anywhere on the screen like every, it looks right.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  I wish I knew how this actually played.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  I mean, you'll get to find out this winter. Wait, this before Christmas. I think that's how they phrase it. Before the holidays? There we go.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  And this isn't totally exclusive to, it was supposed to be exclusive to App Store. That's our, our original headline, but then I saw something about it coming to Android?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yes. So they made the, they did that thing that is maddening on stage where it's like, oh, it's exclusive to App Store. And then the press release comes and it's like available for a limited time on App Store or something like that.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  It's like a timed exclusive, as they call them in the bands.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and then of course it will expand so that it can make even more money. But we'll see. I, I, I am more optimistic about Nintendo's mobile games than I was before they took the stage yesterday.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  Looks like they did a good job.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I think they did fine. I, I'm very curious about like the next year for that company. Because at some point they have to announce this new console that they have too.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Oh, right.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  How many terror flops is that gonna have?

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Oh, probably not many. Probably the fewest number of flops that you can flop.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Uh, but that, yeah, that's supposedly coming out somewhere in March of next year.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  It's September. That's crazy.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  No announcement. And what games is it?

• 32:03Speaker 01

  I mean, here's what I think is gonna be on it. Mario.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Oh, ooh.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  And maybe, hmm, you know, I can't count on anything else.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Wait, was there, there's Mario 3D Land on the Wii U, right?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Is it Mario 3D World?

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Oh, 3D World.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  One of them is on DS. Yes, 3D World is on Wii U.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  That didn't feel like enough of a Mario. I want a true 3D platformer again.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  I mean, that's fair. Like, you mean like, uh, Super Mario Galaxy?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Like a Galaxy or Mario 64 or Mario Sunshine?

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you're not gonna get another Mario Sunshine. I would

• 32:43Speaker 01

  take that thought and I would wish it beneath your toes.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Um, but, I mean, maybe. That would, that would be a big way to, to make a splash.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Man, it's so easy being Nintendo. Just make another, just make another Mario game, another Mario Kart.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Being constantly worried that your entire business could collapse at any moment.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  I just, I, it was weird to me. Like, you had this, an Apple announcement for the iPhone, you know? And this is like, this is the most cutting edge, like, the, it's like the A10 Fusion or something like that? Like, the most powerful mobile processor ever conceived by a human being? And then, like, one of the biggest announcements is that a game that is almost identical, but probably lesser in features than a game that came out on the original Nintendo, is gonna be like a new flagship game.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Oh, that wasn't even as bad as the game they actually showed to flaunt the graphics. Cause like, Mario opened it, but then they were like, oh, by the way, this is the super mobile processor, you know, that we could never have comprehended in our wildest dreams.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Oh, and it was not-

• 33:52Speaker 01

  And then they were like, and to show it off, here is a Wizard of Oz role playing-

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Like, imagine Wizard of Oz as a dark, gritty RPG. Like, The Witcher of Oz.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  And, and it's like, that game could be good. I don't know, but like, that was not-

• 34:08Speaker 00

  400 flying monkeys.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  It was not what I would have chosen at all to show off the power of your graphics on your video game. I don't understand Apple's relationship with video games at all. Like Nintendo being there was maybe the most sense that they have made in the world of video games in a long time. Otherwise, it just feels like whoever the people are up top who decide those things are like, "Yeah, Wizard of Oz, that's cool with the kids. Let's get that on stage. Wait till they see what Frank Baum is up to next."

• 34:46Speaker 00

  It is. Weren't those books like a commentary on like the gold standard or something like that?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  They were written at the Del Coronado in like San Diego by just a dude who was like, I don't know, drunk out of his mind. "I'm gonna get sued by the Frank Baum estate." Nothing of what I have said is true and I'm not liable for it.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  I bet Frank Baum was a real nice man. Alright, well, so last week, I used to do this thing every week on the show where I would talk about a gadget that I love and I think is really interesting that everybody should know about.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  But then, we had Ashley on the show and she totally showed me up on my own bit. So I'm gonna have her back this week and she is going to tell you now in a special thing that happens every week. It's a little segment that Ashley calls...

• 35:34Speaker 03

  iPhone 7. Did you guys know that the iPhone 7 has dual cameras on its plus size? Did you know it has no headphone jack on both the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus? Did you know it comes in jet black but that jet black sometimes scratches to the point that Apple had to put a footnote on its release? Did you know its camera is better? That's the iPhone 7. That's my weekly segment called "The iPhone 7." Goodbye.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Well, thank you, Ashley. I feel like I know more about technology now.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  This week's episode of The Vergecast, this renegade rebellious episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Chris, have you ever used Squarespace? Uh, you mean building it beautiful? Have you built a beautiful website? You know what? Maybe? I have. It's probably not the right answer. It looks great. Yeah. Well, so Squarespace has been in part of my life for a long time. Yeah. Because I built a website like way, way back when. And then it turns out like everybody that I went to church with was all working for Squarespace. They were like the founder or like the tech support. Everybody at my church was somehow associated with

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Squarespace. And then every single podcast that I've ever listened to has a Squarespace ad in it. So I feel like I know a lot about Squarespace. It is actually very easy to make websites. It's easy is a key point that Squarespace wants me to tell you about. You get a free custom domain. If you sign up for a year of Squarespace, you'll get a free custom domain for the website that you just signed up for. They've got beautiful templates. They've got seamless commerce tools. So you can sell stuff using Squarespace with this website that you built with free domain. 24/7 customer support. Every member of the customer care team is an experienced Squarespace user working in a Squarespace

• 37:40Speaker 00

  office. So these people really actually know about Squarespace. They're not just trying to get you to buy more things. They want to help you. And you can start a free trial today at Squarespace.com and enter the offer code VERGE to get 10% off your first purchase. And my favorite thing about Squarespace is that they always are coming up with new taglines. And this month's tagline is "Squarespace: Set Your Website Apart." Isn't that great? So nice. I feel compelled to make another Squarespace website. You're gonna say another Squarespace ad. Let's, you know, let's just start from the top. From the top. Squarespace. Love it. Websites? Cool. Welcome to the internet.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  Domain names? If you get a year. Got it. All right. Thank you, Squarespace.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  And that's our show. Hey, guess what? Apple killed the headphone jack. How does it make you feel? Never, you'll never know unless you don't listen to Control, Walt, Delete this week. All right? I can't emphasize enough that that's an important thing for you to do. Because we all have to process our feelings. I'm personally am just completely enthralled and exhilarated at the lack of a headphone jack. But contractually, I can't let you know why. Because I'm not on Control, Walt, Delete. That's where you learn about the reasons for things. Also, Chris, you have, you have your own show that maybe people don't know about. Can you explain? Can you give me the what's tech of what's tech?

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's tech is a show where we explain, uh, like a bit of technology every week. They're short, digestible, like 15 to 20 minutes. But really, we just explain everything. So like, you could be confused by all these video game things. There's an episode about mid-cycle video game relaunches. There's an episode about fanfiction. There's an episode on doxing. Pretty much, if you can think of it, or it's ever been on theverge.com. We have explained it. This week, we talk about a Proxima Centauri B. It's a Earth-sized planet in the, like, kind of orbiting the star, nearest our solar system.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  I need to listen to this episode because I read all the headlines and I'm very confused.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's, here's where I was like, I was like, oh, I have to do an episode about this. When I was talking to our colleague Lauren Crush about it, I was like, how long will it take humans to send something there? And she's like, well, there are two, two lines of thought. One is tens of thousands of years, and the other is 20 years. And I was like, tell me more.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  One of those sounds way better than the other one.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can find out on our show.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, what a tease. Yeah. Okay, so that's every Tuesday.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Every Tuesday.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Control, Walt, Delete is every Thursday with Walt Mossberg and Neelai Patel. Verge ESP is Friday with Emily Yoshida and Liz Lopato.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  So many choices. I hope you choose correctly. And I'm really grateful for you spending your time with me and Chris today. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I hope everything is well for you. Hope you decide if you prefer 4K Blu-ray or 4K video games. Are you a gamer or are you just a couch potato? Something to think about. Couldn't possibly be both. I'm FuturePaul on Twitter. ChrisPlant is- At Plant? At Plant with an E. Yeah. Plante. And you'll have to listen to Control Wall Delete to find out everybody else's Twitter. Also, you could go to iTunes.com/TheVerge.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  If you loved this renegated podcast that you'll never hear again. And you could rate it. You say like, put in five stars and then say, loved when it was just Chris and Paul on the show. That was cool. Say that. Or put in five stars and be like, this is for all the other episodes. Please bring them back. Bring back the regulars. It's fine. We can take the criticism. Follow Verge on Twitter. That's at Verge. Snapchat, Verge. Instagram, Verge. Facebook, you guessed it, Facebook.com/Verge. Today's episode was also brought to you by Autodesk. Autodesk Graphic is the specific product that's sponsoring today's show. It's not just the whole company, but Autodesk Graphic is a full-featured app for making icons,

• 42:06Speaker 00

  illustrations, UI and UX, or anything else you'd need out of a professional vector design app. Don't go consumer when it comes to vectors. Go professional. It's available on your Mac, phone, and iPad, so you can design without compromise on the go. It's the vector design app you've been waiting for for your iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Visit graphic.com to learn more about Autodesk Graphic or find it in the App Store. And I added that thing about consumers. I'm sure anybody can use this, but it's great. I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna try it out, because I actually love vectors. Thank you, Autodesk. And that's our show. Whoop, whoop.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Ah, I'm Frank L. Baum. I wrote a familiar book that you might enjoy. I'm also Mark Twain. Or Langhorne Clemens is my real name.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Frank, did you ever envision that the monkeys that you envisioned with your mind's eye could be rendered with such graphical fidelity by a mobile phone processor?

• 43:26Speaker 01

  I must say I did. I am a futurist, and I have once visited the future through a small hotel room in San Diego Bay.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Why do you know where he wrote the book?

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I've... I am Frank L. Baum. I know where I wrote my own damn book.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Alright, that's our show.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Bye.