The Switch 2 Is Finally Here

Today, Nintendo released its first new console in eight years... and the Triple Click gang doesn't have it yet. But that won't stop Jason, Maddy, and Kirk from talking about the Switch 2, its launch lineup, and the imaginary promises that consoles bring. Plus: some Summer Games Fest hopes and predictions!

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

• 0:04Kirk Hamilton?

  The Switch 2 isn't out yet. Well, it is out as you're listening, but it isn't out as I'm recording. So the Switch 2 both is and isn't out yet. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games and the consoles to you. It's Switch 2 launch week, which means it's time for us to talk one more time about Nintendo's latest new console and the hopes and dreams we have for what it might be. Stick around.

• 0:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:33Jason Schreier?

  And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello.

• 0:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hi there, my friends.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  You guys ready? It's an exciting week.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  It's a packed week. Did it need to be like this?

• 0:44Jason Schreier?

  Did it need to be like this? No.

• 0:46Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I think it didn't.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  It didn't, actually.

• 0:48Jason Schreier?

  No, it did not. But I will say, Maddie, that I actually was very happy when I saw that when the Switch 2 release date was announced, because I'm going on a family vacation in a couple weeks, and I was like, "Please do not announce this console to me, like, smack the middle of my family vacation." So that worked out nicely.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Okay. So in a way, this is good, that I'm gonna have a stressful week. And Jason's gonna have his version of a stressful week, too, but...

• 1:14Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm gonna have a stressful week as well, but for reasons unrelated to the game.

• 1:17Jason Schreier?

  Completely unrelated.

• 1:18Kirk Hamilton?

  We're all just stressed out here at TripleClick, but you know what isn't stressful? The fact that all of you support our show.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  So true.

• 1:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It's actually really reassuring. It's the opposite of stressful, knowing that you all have our back and that you support the creation of TripleClick. And if you would like to support this totally listener-supported show, you can go to maximumfun.org/join and sign up to become a member of our worker-owned network Maximum Fun. You'll support a whole ton of shows that they make, including this one, and you will gain access to all kinds of bonus content, including monthly bonus episodes that we record. The most recent one, of course, is about blueprints. It had to be about blueprints. It is a long and really fun conversation, but there are all sorts of bonus episodes and little extras there in the feed, and there will be in the future as well. This month, we're gonna talk about Andor, which I personally am very, very excited about. We have...

• 2:10Kirk Hamilton?

  A number of cool and/or bits of content coming up for you all, but one of them is going to be a Beans Cast. We will record full spoilers for the bonus episode. So yeah, MaximumFun.org/join. That is the place to sign up to become a member. Last thing, if you haven't bought your ticket yet for our Portland live show on July 11th, well, what are you waiting for? You really should. It's going to be super fun. We're putting it all together. We've got the posters printed out. I'm finishing up the songs that I'm writing. We've got a bunch of music that we're prepared to do. And of course, a lot of video game business to discuss on stage. It's going to be super fun. So that show is at the Alberta Rose Theater on Friday, July 11th at 8 o'clock PM. You can preorder tickets in a link in the show notes, and we really hope that you will. And we hope

• 2:55Kirk Hamilton?

  that we'll see you there, just because we don't do that many live shows, and they're really, really fun when we do. And I think this one is going to be something special. So yeah, get some tickets for that. July 11th. Be there. All right. Well, yes, it is a big week. It's a big day today that you're all listening to this. So Jason, why don't you, why don't you take us into it?

• 3:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so today is June 5th. We're recording this a few days before that, but June 5th is the day that the Switch 2 comes out. It's also, Summer Games Fest is also about to start. So that's exciting. Lots to talk about there. Today, we're going to talk mostly about the Switch 2, and then we'll, we'll throw in a little bit, a little bit of extra spice of Summer Games Fest talk, maybe towards the end of this conversation.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  A sprinkling of Keeley. Just a little dash.

• 3:39Jason Schreier?

  A little, a sprinkling of Jeff. But really, really, the Switch 2 is the big news here. It's, today's a new console launch. The Nintendo's first new console since the Switch 1 in 2017, eight years ago. And there is a whole lot to discuss about it, but unfortunately, none of us have gotten early units. So we don't actually have any hands-on with the thing, other than me. I played some of, I got hands-on with it a couple of months ago, but like, we haven't been testing out the system. We haven't gotten a chance to review it, or anything like that. So that will have to wait. Real hands-on impressions

• 4:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Print it out a Switch 2, actually.

• 4:21Jason Schreier?

  On a 3D printer?

• 4:22Kirk Hamilton?

  On cardboard and cut it out and I've just been walking around with it.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:25Kirk Hamilton?

  So that's been pretty cool.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 4:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Not a 3D printer, just 2D on cardboard.

• 4:29Jason Schreier?

  How did you make the Joy-Cons like with the magnets with cardboard?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, did you put magnetic strips on the two pieces of paper?

• 4:37Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I just used my imagination.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 4:39Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really an imagination powered console.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Should we use our imagination now?

• 4:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  To just be like, would Mario Kart be fun or not? Let's imagine.

• 4:46Jason Schreier?

  Let's think about it. It's actually a good segue because I feel like when you buy a console, you are buying the promise of imagination. And I've seen-

• 4:54Kirk Hamilton?

  A console is a wish in your heart, mate.

• 4:56Jason Schreier?

  It really is. I've seen a lot of sentiment. I've seen a lot of sentiment over the last couple of weeks. A pretty consistent theme from people has been like, it doesn't feel like a new console is coming out next week. But like, if you remember previous console launches, all of them are underwhelming. And in fact, the reason that the Switch 1 didn't feel underwhelming is because it came with a new Zelda. We'll get to that in a second. But for the most part, console launches, PS5 launch, Xbox Series X launch, all of these console launches, it's kind of you're buying a promise of the future. You're buying something that will hopefully be an investment for years to come. That'll be full of cool games that you can play on it. And it's kind of you're buying imagination.

• 5:41Jason Schreier?

  But yeah, let me open it to you two. It is now, we are recording this on Monday, June 2. So we are three days away from the thing. By the time people listen to it, it will be out. How are you guys feeling about the Switch 2? Are you excited about it? And also, would you buy one if you didn't have to cover it for this show and our other jobs? Maddie, what are you, how are you feeling about the Switch 2 launch?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Well, I will say I can't quite relate to the idea that it doesn't feel like a new console launch is happening because of my job. I will attempt to answer the second half of your question shortly. But let me just first say that for me at least, this has been something that has involved many months of brainstorm meetings, planning across desks, of course. Of course, some of those people don't work at Polygon anymore. And then that has kicked off one frenetic month of May, planning and attempting to deal with the fact that I have a completely different staff of people now. So yes, it really does feel like the Switch 2 is about to come out because I've been staring down the barrel of this gun for a really long time.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  But I don't think anyone is in that position.

• 6:54Jason Schreier?

  It's perhaps a truly unique perspective.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Maybe just me, but if I can separate myself from that, which I'd love to do. I'm exiting my body right now and I'm flying into a different version of Maddy Myers, who doesn't have this job and maybe doesn't even work in video games journalism for some reason, would she be pre-ordering a Switch 2? I don't think she'd be a day one buyer, but I think she'd be pretty close. And my citation for that is like myself in college and myself as a teenage girl and what I was interested in and some pretty bad consoles that I was still willing to get on the ground floor of. And maybe I loathe these many years later would have stopped doing that, but I don't

• 7:38Speaker 01

  think I would have because I know that college Maddy was a really big fan of the couch co-op game and current Maddy still is too. And what is the launch title here but a Mario Kart World? I mean, that is like a classic party game. I'm not exactly throwing amazing parties now like I did then, but I still think that

• 7:59Jason Schreier?

  But you might, you could.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  In this, in this other world, I think I would still be pretty excited about Mario Kart World, even if I wasn't working in this industry. I mean, I know I'm excited the present Maddy is, but I'm imagining a version of her.

• 8:11Jason Schreier?

  $500 excited?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  I see, that's the tricky part. So I feel like what we're always going over with is console launches.

• 8:17Jason Schreier?

  It depends what alternate Maddy's job is, if she can afford it.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  What's her job? What's her position?

• 8:21Kirk Hamilton?

  She works at a hedge fund, she's not sweating it.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  She's kind of like a Billions-esque figure. She's kind of like Bobby on that show. Does anybody like kind of know?

• 8:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Kind of want to hang out with alternate universe Maddy.

• 8:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, maybe alternate universe Maddy should support triple.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  She's actually like, I'm on the ground floor and the other person who's co-hosting TripleClick, that's not me, is like way better than I ever could be. And Maddie's a huge fan of her.

• 8:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, now that's impossible to imagine. Now you've punctured this fantasy entirely. No one is better than Maddie.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right. That's ridiculous. That's impossible. I think I wouldn't be a day one buyer, but I think I'd be pretty early and I think I'd be pretty into Mario Kart. But that's me. I want to hear from you two. I don't know if you'd feel the same way, if you cast yourselves into your other bodies that don't have TripleClick. Kirk, what about you?

• 9:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I guess we'll start with that question, this counterfactual, I don't know that I would buy this at launch. I think that I probably wouldn't. I was reading back over my review of the original Switch and my advice at the end of that review was wait, even though it was a very positive review and I really liked the Switch and I saw its potential.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Even with Zelda?

• 9:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Zelda was great.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, because, well, I assume some people had Wii U's and they could play Zelda on that if they really wanted to. And at the time, there just weren't that many games for it. We can link to that review. It was pretty solid. It was a 2017, it was late era Kotaku Kirk. And I think it was a pretty even-handed review that really kind of nailed all of the different aspects of the console, because it was a very complex console. The central idea was clear, but there was a lot more to it. And there were a lot of hidden costs. There were all these accessories and things you had to buy. That was a big part of it. Even though the Switch 1 was much cheaper than the Switch 2, it was still more expensive than it seemed, particularly when you factored games into that. So it's always kind of been an expensive proposition, buying a new console, since you got to get the console,

• 10:12Kirk Hamilton?

  maybe a controller or other accessory. If you want to play Mario Kart with people, maybe you didn't have a Switch and you want to have more controllers and you got to buy games or get the $500 bundle to get Mario Kart. And I think for me, that would probably be the barrier if I didn't write about games, if I didn't know it was likely that I would at least get codes for Switch games. You know, the idea of paying $600, $700 just to be able to play stuff on this console would hold me off. And I would have to imagine that if I was still into video games, even if I wasn't writing about them, I would have a Steam I'll be playing so many indie games on that that it would also be a harder sell for me to consider getting a handheld that can play.

• 10:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, great. A lot of those same indie games and then some doubtless fantastic Nintendo games that are going to be very expensive. And so it's just a whole other console just for that. It is a very different landscape. And so I think I would view it differently than I did the Switch one.

• 11:06Jason Schreier?

  It does feel like we've entered into this zone with the Switch two where like it is gaming has become a hobby for like people with disposable income. For like people with with six figure salaries, people who are upper middle class. Like, it doesn't really feel like it's quite as attainable if you are lower income than it was in the past. The Switch one still exists and that is a lot more attainable because it's a much cheaper system and because the games are much cheaper. But like, to your point about the hidden costs of the Switch one, that is very much the case with this too. Because not only if you want to play Mario Kart, if you're a family of four and you get the $500 Mario Kart bundle, you have to have two extra controllers for the rest of your family to play.

• 11:49Jason Schreier?

  And granted, that could be Switch one controllers. So maybe you don't have to spend a bunch of money on them, but still. And if your kids like fight over who gets the pro controller, maybe you need like two pro controllers.

• 12:00Kirk Hamilton?

  And maybe the pro controller gets broken as they fight.

• 12:02Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. They throw them in a fit of rage.

• 12:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Which I have seen happen.

• 12:07Jason Schreier?

  And then if you want to do the game chat streaming stuff, you need to buy the camera, which is not part of the system. It's another accessory. And then the games, Mario Kart World on its own outside of the bundle is $80. Donkey Kong Bonanza, which comes out in July is $70. So not all of the games are going to be 80. But it's safe to say that like some of them will, if Mario Kart is, that means almost certainly the next like tier A Nintendo game will be $80. So we're talking about a big, big investment and this is pre tariff like craziness. So who knows what's gonna happen there.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  And who knows what the tariffs will happen. That's always in flux.

• 12:44Jason Schreier?

  Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Like who knows what's gonna, if like the price could go up at some point in the future. So it's definitely, it's a, it's a tough one. That said, I mean, pre orders are. Selling out like crazy and everybody seems to want this thing. So that hasn't stifled demand, but it is, it is tough. And I feel for people out there who like want one, but legitimately can't afford it because the barrier for entry is so high. That said, for me, to kind of answer the hypothetical here, if I to kind of isolate myself from my job a little bit. For me, Mario Kart wouldn't be enough of a sell just for me, but the fact that I have two kids who are like getting older and getting closer to gaming age. Makes it a lot more appealing to me. That said, I don't think I would try for a launch.

• 13:28Jason Schreier?

  I think I might wait until the holiday after a couple more games are out. As exciting as like Mario Kart or like Donkey Kong and Delta Rune, which I guess I could just play on PC. But yeah, I can't imagine wanting to get one on launch necessarily if this wasn't my job. At least until Metroid comes out or like some other kind of like game I'm way more interested in. That's like a single player experience. And that had me thinking about the Switch one and how Zelda was really such a strong selling point for that thing. That it made it feel like an event because it wasn't just they were getting a new piece of plastic that like will be your go to console for the next few years.

• 14:08Jason Schreier?

  It was also you will spend the next month, just like losing yourself to this masterpiece of a video game that is unlike any Zelda game. And unlike most games you've ever played before. So that I think is one of the reasons the Switch one felt like also the novelty of it. It was much different than previous consoles. This feels like more and more of the same. But really Zelda, I think was the, the reason that the Switch one launch was just like, oh my God, the Switch one is here.

• 14:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I was, I mean, I'm probably most excited about playing Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch two. Which is funny. I've got a lot of stuff to clean up in that game. It'd be pretty cool to play it on a more powerful system.

• 14:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they should have held it a couple of years, like.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say. Do you think, I mean, we all know the rumors that the Switch two was supposed to come out way before now. And that the reason why it didn't was because of chip shortages, supply chain problems, COVID, list goes on. There were all these things that held it up. Is there, speaking of alternate realities, like was there an alternate reality where Tears of the Kingdom was the Switch two launch title? And this was just. A huge system seller for them. I mean, that's obviously not the reality we're in, but that would have felt like the correct way for this to go, doesn't it? But instead, we all already played it and we're kind of like, okay, well, here's the games that Nintendo has on its slate in 2025.

• 15:29Jason Schreier?

  The thing is Mario Kart is a bigger system seller than Tears of the Kingdom.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Is it? I mean, I guess we're about to find out.

• 15:34Jason Schreier?

  For people in their like, late 30s to 40s who like grew up with Zelda and loves Zelda to death. And also, I mean, don't get me wrong, Zelda like sells a billion copies also, but Mario Kart is the next level. Like it's, I think the newest Zelda has sold 25 million, 30 million copies, whereas Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold 75 million copies, something like that. So.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  That's true. So there's kind of like the gaming podcaster ideal launch slate. And that's like a bunch of cool, single player games that we can chat about and have Beanscast about. And then there's like the mainstream gaming family launch slate, and that's Mario Kart World.

• 16:09Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  That's like the financially successful launch.

• 16:12Jason Schreier?

  There's not, like when we play Mario Kart, and maybe there'll be a lot to talk about, but I don't know.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Huge Beanscast. Ton of lore.

• 16:18Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  So many secrets.

• 16:20Jason Schreier?

  Mario Kart World Beanscast, could you imagine? No, but like for people, and I mean, I empathize with, with the casuals, with the normies out there now that I'm, I have kids who like want to play games for me. Although we did, we tried to play Mario Party a couple of days ago and they got very upset. My son, who's almost three, is like getting upset every time Bowser appears and he starts crying and getting scared. And my daughter, who's almost six, gets, we talked about this the other day, gets annoyed every time she loses and gets really frustrated. So it's, it's.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  These are developmental milestones.

• 16:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny that your son doesn't like Doug Bowser. Like, what's his problem with Doug Bowser?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Doug Bowser seems like he's perfectly fine as a replacement.

• 16:58Kirk Hamilton?

  He does seem like a friendly guy.

• 16:59Jason Schreier?

  He does. He does.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 17:01Jason Schreier?

  So yeah, I mean, my answer is I don't think I would buy it at launch. I think I would just wait until the holiday. But again, you're buying this potential, right? And presumably, this is not inside information, please don't make reset era threads about this, but presumably there will be a direct at some point in the near future because it feels like we haven't, we don't know. When Metroid is coming out, we don't know what their big holiday titles are. And so you are buying this thing for potential because you know all of Nintendo's games are going to be on it. And so it is in many ways a safer bet than say buying an Xbox Series X was in November of 2020, when you potentially like wasted a bunch of money on something that like all of the games are going to be on other platforms

• 17:43Jason Schreier?

  too. So this is a safer bet than than pretty much any other console in that you know you're only going to be able to play the next Mario on here. You're only going to be able to play the next Zelda on here.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, looking back at the Switch one, you know, you mentioned that Breath of the Wild was the big excitement, you know, generator for that console. I think that was true when we were reviewing it. I also think it was exciting just seeing what the console could do. I think that it's proof of concept, that basic idea where you drop it into the dock and it pops up on the TV and then you're playing it. That was really cool and kind of demonstrated itself. Like it proved itself immediately. The very first time you did it, it just worked exactly as it was supposed to. And then we had the experience of taking a game like Breath of the Wild on the go with us and being able to play it in these two different modes. And I think that did actually feel exciting. It felt exciting

• 18:40Kirk Hamilton?

  to me. It was something new. I just hadn't ever really done that before.

• 18:44Jason Schreier?

  Right.

• 18:44Kirk Hamilton?

  And in a way that was even different than past Nintendo consoles, the Wii did things I'd never felt before, playing with motion controls. But I never really found it that exciting because it was always a little bit weird. Wii Sports was fun, but for the most part, I kind of just wanted a controller. But the Switch really was something that I wanted, that I didn't know I wanted, which is a rare kind of technological feat. That's something that Apple, for example, is very good at. The iPad is a good example of something where people saw it and they thought, what in the world? This is like a big phone. Who wants this? And then for a lot of people, they got an iPad and realized, oh, this middle device is actually very useful in it. There are a lot of different ways that I can use it. So the Switch kind of felt like that, where its central idea was also exciting in addition to that one killer launch game.

• 19:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's a good point. And the just the sheer fact that this is an iterative console rather than an innovative console.

• 19:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, exactly.

• 19:34Jason Schreier?

  Like reduces the excitement for a lot of people, even though it was the smart move from Nintendo. And I think the three of us have been saying that for a long time now.

• 19:41Kirk Hamilton?

  This is like the iPad OLED where it's a better iPad, but it's still an iPad. So you already like this thing, here's a better one.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Or it's like the Switch OLED, they made an OLED, like there's literally an OLED. So I don't even know if we can say it's the OLED.

• 19:55Jason Schreier?

  But it's not, let's not confuse things because the Switch 2 is not OLED.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:59Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not LCD as it's known.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  The Switch 2 is in fact not an OLED at all. So let me say some statistics that I recently learned that I thought were really fascinating. So my colleague Ollie Welsh did this analysis where he looked at the launches for every Nintendo console by sales only in the first four quarters. And the first two, so we're just talking about like the first four financial quarters. I'm not saying these are the most successful consoles of all time. We're just talking about the financials for those first four quarters. And the top two were the Game Boy Advance and the 3DS, which is not what I would think. And again, I'm not talking, we don't need to get into the 3DS lineup and the fact, you know, what do people like and dislike about it? That's not what I'm talking about.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  But I do think it's interesting that those are both consoles that are like iterative and we're kind of leveling up on a handheld device that people really, really enjoyed. And I mean, I also know from just Polygon traffic that our Game Boy Advance like best games list, which is an ancient list that we periodically update, is like a super popular piece of content that we have. Like people are so obsessed with the Game Boy Advance. So I don't know what this says about the Switch 2, but the reason why Ollie put this together was because at work, we've all been like trying to read the tea leaves and be like, okay, sure, pre-orders are sold out. But like the Wii U sold out pre-orders, you know? Like, does that really mean that this is gonna work? So I'm just, we're just grasping at straws here.

• 21:30Jason Schreier?

  The 3DS was an odd one because that actually started out so slowly that they had to slash the price of it after like

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I think that probably helped it do really well later.

• 21:39Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, led to a huge, a huge holiday for it because it was so much cheaper.

• 21:46Kirk Hamilton?

  And now consoles get more expensive several years after the release.

• 21:49Jason Schreier?

  That's true.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the games are more expensive too, but maybe that's not going to stay the case. Like, all of this stuff is in flux. I mean, Nintendo's just trying something and then we're going to see what the finances are after the fact. But it is interesting to me that historically, people have liked, with the exception of the Wii U, they've liked the idea of Nintendo kind of iterating on something they just did and being like, here's the slightly better version of the thing. You still want it? Apparently so. At least initially.

• 22:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, sure. Although this is an interesting case because the Switch 1 is on track to be the best-selling console of all time, like when it beats the PS. It's about to beat the PS2, I believe, this year. And so

• 22:29Speaker 01

  What do you compare to that?

• 22:30Jason Schreier?

  And so, yeah, so how do you surpass that?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  You can't.

• 22:33Jason Schreier?

  Like, even putting the finances aside and the revenue aside and the sales units aside, I am, I want to just follow on something that Kirk said, which is that, yeah, like, in 2017, when the Switch came out, the idea of handheld gaming wasn't quite as prevalent as it was. I mean, we had dedicated handheld systems, but those were all games that are specifically made for handheld, as opposed to this idea that is pretty common now of like having a system that plays console games except on the go. So now we have the Switch, we have the Steam Deck, we have the PlayStation Portal, we have soon-to-be Xbox, like getting into the handheld game, stamping their name, like working with other partners.

• 23:14Kirk Hamilton?

  When all of the other Steam Deck competitors is the wrong ally.

• 23:19Jason Schreier?

  It's a very, it's clear there is a market for that, and it's only getting bigger. And the Switch really started that, pioneered that. And I think for people who like enjoy gaming in bed or on the go, like if they travel a lot on the subway, or if they have kids and they need to like play on a separate screen, like while hanging out with their kids or something like that. That there's a lot of appeal there. And now in 2025, it's no longer quite as much of a sell. And so like, for example, back in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, anytime an indie came out, it was like, are you coming to switch? We want to play this on the go. Now there's a little bit less of a demand for that because of the Steam Deck.

• 23:58Jason Schreier?

  And so this idea of Elden Ring being on the Switch 2, that would be incredibly exciting for me if I didn't already have Elden Ring on my Steam Deck and I wasn't able to already play it on the go. That said, Steam Deck's kind of appeal to people, Steam Deck is a much more niche device than the Switch. So I think that excitement that we felt back then, that Kirk mentioned, I think still could be captured. If there are a lot of people out there, and I don't know if there are, maybe there are, if there are a lot of people out there who haven't had the chance to play like these third-party games that are coming to the Switch 2 on the go, games like Cyberpunk and Elden Ring and Final Fantasy VII Remake and stuff like that.

• 24:36Jason Schreier?

  So for that demographic, there could be some level of excitement of like, holy crap, like games that look this good can also be portable.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you also need to be somebody who knows that that's what you're getting from the Switch 2, but also is a person who didn't buy a Steam Deck. So you're in kind of like this specific subset of, I'm aware of video game updates and capabilities. And I know that it's a big deal that Cyberpunk 2077 is on a Switch handheld device now. However, I didn't buy a Steam Deck. However, I'm now very excited to buy a Switch 2. I don't, I don't know about who that person is. And on a related note, I think it's comical that the Switch 2 box, like the actual design of the box, looks so similar to the Switch 1, even though it has a huge 2 on it.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  It's still just visually looks really similar because it's like the red and white, the device looks really similar. Like, I'm far from the first person to point out the similarities in just how they look on the shelf. So I'm already envisioning, like, I'm going back to the Wii U again, but how can I not? Like, there is this issue.

• 25:48Jason Schreier?

  Do you think a lot of people out there are getting? Their products by going to Target and looking at the shelves.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  I think in a year.

• 25:54Jason Schreier?

  What's out today?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  I think in a year or two. Yeah, I think like, you know, grandma buys a Switch one by accident. I don't think that's impossible to fathom, is it? I mean, that's like the danger, right? I mean, yeah, you return it. It's fine. It all works out. But like, are there people that know?

• 26:09Jason Schreier?

  Grandma, even grandma is shopping online these days.

• 26:12Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm not ready to start a moral panic about it, but I can't imagine the viral video of the kid opening the box.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Sure. And being like, um, listen, let me explain.

• 26:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And then two days later, we find out that video was staged because this isn't actually.

• 26:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It was made by AI.

• 26:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That was real. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that it's like a significant issue or whatever. And Nintendo needs to like redesign the box. I'm just kind of already in that zone of thinking, who exactly is specifically thinking like, okay, I know exactly what's on the Switch two, but I'm also not the same person that wanted a Steam Deck. But you're right, Jason, the Steam Deck numbers are low.

• 26:47Jason Schreier?

  I mean, it could, it could be a couple of things. It could be, one could be like a simple matter of finances where it's like, you have a very limited gaming budget every year. And you, maybe you have a Switch, but you can't afford to buy a Steam Deck. And then you decide to start saving up for the Switch two. And then it's like, oh, okay, now I can finally play some of these games on the go. I don't know. I mean, Elden Ring is a game that I believe has sold something like 30 million copies, maybe a little bit less. I don't remember the exact number. But that means that people to this day are still buying it and checking it out for the first time. So there's like probably a lot of people out there who are going to buy it for the first time on, on Switch two. I think we, the three of us, just by nature of our jobs and our podcasts, we tend to get stuck in this idea of like, oh, if we haven't played, if, if we didn't play that within a month of it coming out, like we're not gonna check it out.

• 27:32Jason Schreier?

  Cause we're always checking out the new stuff, but like, there are tons of people out there who are like, who maybe heard the name Elden Ring, but just never bothered playing it or never had a chance to play it. And will now do so because it's coming to the Switch two. So I, I do think there is an audience for that. It's just not as exciting to people like us who are more kind of getting everything, like playing everything, like really hardcore into it.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Getting codes too.

• 27:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And getting codes. Yes. And not quite as limited by finances. It's not as exciting to us because we've already had the chance to play a lot of those games on the go.

• 28:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's interesting. I'm picturing my 14-year-old niece, who is just getting to the age where I could see her getting into Elden Ring. So there's also the

• 28:13Jason Schreier?

  Oh man, that's gonna be so much fun.

• 28:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Switch player who might age up into something like Elden Ring.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 28:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is a number of people, you know, it's been seven years.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 28:21Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's a big seven years. She was seven when the Switch came out.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Whoa, yeah. That's true. You can like go all the way from seven to teenagerhood in that time.

• 28:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, so there's that too. And even if you weren't going through, you know, a huge growth period in your development, you could also just be seven years older and have decided that you want to try to play Elden Ring. Can I run a thought I've had about consoles and games past the two of you?

• 28:44Jason Schreier?

  Please.

• 28:44Kirk Hamilton?

  This is something I've been chewing on for a little while. It seems to me like in the last, I'd say maybe decades, or not exactly, you know, correspondent with the period of time from the release of the Switch one until now, but around that period, it seems to me that software and games have become more like platforms, or maybe more like consoles. And as a result, it's sort of changed the way that I think about consoles. And I think that's just something interesting to think about and to bear in mind. We talk a lot now about a game like Fortnite or Roblox as being a platform. People will use that word. Oh, it's a game, but really it's more of a platform. And of course, that's also the word that we use to talk about consoles. Because it used to be a console, actually, we thought about it sort of similarly

• 29:28Kirk Hamilton?

  to the way that we think about a game as a service. It was, like we said, it's a wish your heart makes. You're buying into a promise when you buy a console, and you're assuming that the console maker is gonna update it, they're gonna add new games, they're probably gonna update the software, maybe they have that subscription service or online service that gives you more and more stuff. The console's gonna get better over time, it's gonna be supported. It's not dissimilar from something like an MMO, where you start paying and you start playing and paying with your time and building up a character, and then you get new stuff, and it gets updates, and it kind of keeps being interesting for you. And it seems to me that over the last 10 years, games have actually become much more platform-like, in that way that I just mentioned. Anyone who's played Fortnite or Roblox can picture that. And so it's kind of interesting that consoles feel somewhat diminished in a number of ways now.

• 30:12Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think it can't be a coincidence that as that diminishment has happened, software has kind of taken on a more console-like role.

• 30:21Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think that's an interesting point, except when you invest in Fortnite, it's free. And when you invest in a console, it's $500.

• 30:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, one reason that a lot more people invest in Fortnite.

• 30:32Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. No, I think that's an interesting point. And it's no coincidence that like, one of the first games available on Switch 2 is going to be Fortnite. And part of that kind of like, interconnectivity of platforms is that the games themselves like, feel different when you get them on the, like Fortnite will feel different on the Switch 2 than it did when it launched on the Switch 1, because that game has changed as well.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I guess you do invest in Fortnite in the sense that you purchase a whole bunch of stuff that's connected to your account also. So like, in that sense, you might be like, I actually am invested in the Fortnite platform as a person. And I'm interested in it on maybe other places where it might be available as those places become more technologically capable. Like, that could just be the way that you see the world. So instead of being like, an Xbox fanboy or whatever, you're just a Fortnite one.

• 31:21Kirk Hamilton?

  No, your loyalty is to Fortnite, especially when you consider the social, you know, aspect of Fortnite that a lot of your friends might play. I mean, the way that Jason and I played Destiny for years, we were primarily motivated because our friends played and that was where we saw our Destiny friends. I'm sure for so many people Fortnite is that way. And I do think it's more likely that they're loyal to Fortnite. And while they're maybe happy to have a new system to play Fortnite on, are they $450 happy when they can just play it on their phone? Probably not. Or at least, a lot of people probably aren't.

• 31:50Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to see. So we'll be talking more about the Switch 2 once we all have it in our hands.

• 31:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, for sure.

• 31:58Jason Schreier?

  So let's talk about Summer Games Fest. Maddie and I are almost on our way to Los Angeles.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're on a plane as you listen to this.

• 32:05Jason Schreier?

  Well, no, I'll be there already, but when this episode airs. You'll be on a plane. And it's like, not E3 time, which means that it's time for video game announcements and demos and interviews and all sorts of exciting stuff. Although, who knows how exciting it is these days in today's world.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Should we still keep calling it not E3? I feel like this is the year we stopped doing that. I'm finally not seeing it.

• 32:33Jason Schreier?

  When I'm talking to normal people.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:37Jason Schreier?

  And they ask, like, and I say, oh, I'm going to LA for Summer Game Fest. They have no idea what that is.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 32:42Jason Schreier?

  And then I say, but it used to be called E3. And then they know.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Oh, they've heard of that.

• 32:45Jason Schreier?

  A little bit of a more of idea.

• 32:46Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny, because Summer Game Fest is a much more descriptive title than E3. You would think they would know what Summer Game Fest was.

• 32:53Jason Schreier?

  Well, but I don't think Summer Game Fest has penetrated the mainstream. Like, it's not enough of a thing. Because Keeley's, like, keynote thing, which we should talk about, like, basically, the way this is structured, for people who aren't familiar, is that on Friday, there's going to be a Jeff Keeley presentation. Basically, the Game Awards, except without even any semblance of awards. So just announcements and commercials and stuff. And then for media, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, there's a special campus in downtown Los Angeles, where we'll get to go and do interviews and get our hands on stuff and play some games, some of which were announced at that thing. And then on Sunday, there's a special Xbox event, where they're doing their own livestream

• 33:36Jason Schreier?

  and their own kind of hands-on things in downtown LA. Ubisoft did one last year, they're not doing one this year at all. And then, I don't know if any other, oh, I/O Interactive, they just announced that James Bond thing, and they're doing their own little thing on Friday. And a couple of other things here and there, but.

• 33:53Kirk Hamilton?

  You forgot to mention the most important SGF hang of all, which is at the Airport Hilton.

• 33:57Jason Schreier?

  Right. The Airport Hilton, which is, of course, we'll all be hanging out. No, Maddy and I will be playing Mario Kart in the JW Marriott lobby.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  That's right. Bring your own controllers. We're only gonna have so many, as we just went over. So you are gonna need to bring your own.

• 34:10Jason Schreier?

  How many do you think, I don't even know, is like, split screen limited to four? Because it's hilarious to imagine 24 split screen players.

• 34:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, God.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  We might be getting a conference room, I don't know. We'll just be seeing what we can handle down there. That's apparently happening at the JW, not the Airport Hilton.

• 34:26Jason Schreier?

  Right.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  We may regret that we said this on the podcast.

• 34:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Important clarification, though.

• 34:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so, uh, so yeah, so that's happening this weekend. And yeah, I mean, to the point, I think Summer Games Fest just hasn't penetrated the cultural consciousness because like, no, nobody knows what it is. It's not nearly as exciting as E3 was. E3, you would have CNN show up with cameras and be like, here, it's time for E3. Gamers are convening and blah, blah, blah, blah, because thousands of people were on this convention center. There's nothing equivalent to that here. It's just kind of Keely making a few announcements and some of them are maybe exciting. I mean, I remember last year's, remember Kirk, we left early because it was so loud and unpleasant being in there.

• 35:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Mostly, yeah, a volume issue.

• 35:06Jason Schreier?

  It was so loud.

• 35:07Kirk Hamilton?

  What was announced last year? I'm really just trying to remember.

• 35:09Jason Schreier?

  It was, it was so boring. It was very, very dull from what I remember. I remember.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  There weren't really like announcements that were exciting, but I remember playing some games that I was excited about.

• 35:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's always fun to get there and play, especially like, there's a big section with lots of indie games. I remember we played UFO 50, we found for the first time.

• 35:26Kirk Hamilton?

  That's right. We played Metaphor.

• 35:27Jason Schreier?

  Metaphor, yeah. So I have some appointments, Maddie has some appointments to see some cool stuff.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can talk about that once we've done them.

• 35:34Jason Schreier?

  And then maybe the Xbox thing, sometimes it's good for some surprises. A lot of stuff has been rumored or leaked out, most notably and hilariously, the Persona 5, or Persona 4 remake being announced by voice actors saying that they're not in it.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Just Yuri Lowenthal breaking that story.

• 35:53Jason Schreier?

  The best way to announce a game is voice actors saying they are not in it.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  They weren't in it. Yeah. It was funny to see other voice actors after he like broke the seal, just joining in and being like, by the way, I'm not in it either. Meanwhile.

• 36:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Which of course Yuri Lowenthal was in Persona 4 Golden. He was originally in it.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was Yosuke.

• 36:12Kirk Hamilton?

  So him saying that, the reason he would say, I'm not in it, is that he is not in the remake.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  And he described, what, begging them to let him reprise his role and being refused? It was, it was a pretty fun, pretty fun post.

• 36:22Kirk Hamilton?

  I was reading about this. I hadn't realized that the P3 remake had a new voice cast, but they did cast a lot of the original voice actors as smaller roles as a kind of nod to them, which I just, I had no idea. It's kind of too bad they didn't do that.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  I guess they still could, although I don't know if they're gonna call Yuri now.

• 36:39Kirk Hamilton?

  This seems kind of unlikely.

• 36:40Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, unless this is all some sort of viral marketing tactic, which is a theory I've seen espoused.

• 36:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, we're talking about it, aren't we?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, they got us.

• 36:50Kirk Hamilton?

  It's probably gonna come out pretty soon, I would imagine, and I will certainly play Persona 4. I have a Persona 4 Golden, like, third playthrough or something going on Steam Deck. I played maybe 10 hours and then I kind of stopped, but that's a good game, man. I'll, I'll play a remake of that for sure.

• 37:03Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, let's, we'll talk about it more next week when the remake is announced, but like, the idea of going back to randomly generated dungeons after Persona 5 and Metaphor, both have these awesome, like, well-designed intricate dungeons.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  bespoke dungeons, yeah.

• 37:16Kirk Hamilton?

  I wonder if a remake could do something to, to sort of make that a little less onerous.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Hmm, maybe. Do we have any other predictions of things that we think are gonna be?

• 37:26Jason Schreier?

  So the, the big thing that, um, uh, it feels to me like it's finally time to see is Silk Song. Because that game has just been, yeah, I mean, it's just, it feels like it's time, man.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Does it feel like it's time?

• 37:40Jason Schreier?

  I made a prediction at the beginning, okay, so in January, I made a prediction, not on this show, but I made a prediction at Bloomberg that like, uh, GTA would slip, but Silk Song would make it. And I still feel like that is going to be the case. But like, who knows with them? They could just delay it another four years just for, for kicks. But, uh, that's, that's my prediction, that it'll be, I don't know if it'll be at the Keely thing or at Xbox or both, but that's my prediction.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Either way, that'd be cool.

• 38:08Jason Schreier?

  What about you guys? Anything you want to see there?

• 38:10Speaker 01

  I don't have a prediction, but I, I have kind of been wondering what's been going on with Halo, just in general. Are they okay? I mean, I, I can't help but notice there's not a lot coming out rumored from the Xbox presentation. We know it's Outer Worlds 2. They've said that, that's all out there. But like, beyond that, I don't know what they're announcing, really. And Halo's in such a weird spot right now. I just wonder how they're doing from time to time. How are the people who make Halo doing?

• 38:37Jason Schreier?

  A lack of rumors often means that it's a pretty dull conference. Just warning you there.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  I'm not saying I'm hoping for it. I'm just saying, I hope they're okay, you know?

• 38:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I hope so too. I also hope they're okay.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  My hearts are going, my heart's going out to them.

• 38:52Kirk Hamilton?

  The fact that we're talking about Silk Song, which still is an indie game made by a handful of people, or you know, I'm thinking about, it'd be cool to hear more about Hades 2. I don't know, I'm thinking about indie games that I'm sort of excited for.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, sure. Is that gonna re-release in 1.0 at some point?

• 39:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, at some point. They've, I mean, they've been announcing a lot and releasing big updates for that. So it could well be that it's already, that the roadmap for that is pretty well laid out. But I was just looking at it in my Steam library the other night thinking, oh man, that's right. There's a whole Hades game that I haven't really played. That's sort of exciting. But that those are the things I'm excited about. It says something about how my tastes as a gamer have changed, but also just where we're at right now. I mean, yeah, like, what is there to be excited about? If they announce some Gears of War thing at a Microsoft event, how excited am I really gonna be about that? Or they show more, I suppose, of the Gears of War thing that they've already announced?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did announce one. I feel like it does say a thing about Gears of War that they were like, let's just go back to a prologue about Marcus and Dom instead of acknowledging that Gears 5 even happened. We're just, Gears 6, who? We don't know her. Just, we're just gonna go all the way back to the beginning. I, yeah, it definitely says something.

• 40:00Jason Schreier?

  A lot of hating on Gears of War.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Hey, I've played every single one and I'm gonna play this one too.

• 40:05Kirk Hamilton?

  I always pick Gears of War because I just think, what is a console-y game that would be announced that I wouldn't be that excited about? Like, I think I did this last year too. I just was like, oh yeah, maybe there'll be a Gears of War. Because that's just where my brain goes when it thinks of that kind of a game. But think of it as a stand-in just for some big console thing.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Well, I took it seriously.

• 40:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, the generic AAA game. No, Kirk, I take your point. I think that's, I would say that's less about your tastes and mostly about where we're at, like where the video game industry is at now. Like, you look at the top reviewed games of the year on Metacritic or whatever, and it's almost entirely like smaller stuff.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Like, double A stuff sometimes, right at the top.

• 40:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, exactly. Double A slash indie, Claire Obscure, Blueprints, Split Fiction are like the top reviewed games of the year, just as an example. A couple of names to float by, you guys, in addition to Outer Worlds 2, which will definitely, so, in addition to Xbox having like- Like a showcase, there's also a direct afterwards or whatever they call it. That's like a 30 minute presentation.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  An Outer Worlds 2 Direct.

• 41:09Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so that'll be a big blowout fall game.

• 41:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Looking forward to that, actually, especially after Avowed. Really want to hear more about that.

• 41:16Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we all really enjoyed Avowed and so Outer Worlds.

• 41:18Kirk Hamilton?

  And I didn't love Outer Worlds, so it would be really cool to see them kind of build on that original game and make something that is, that holds together a little better.

• 41:25Jason Schreier?

  Exactly, yeah, just kind of build on some, some like feedback that they must have gotten to that. A couple of names I will also float for you guys. One is Mina the Hollower, the newest game from Yacht Club, the makers of Shovel Knight. And Mina the Hollower, if you guys haven't seen it, you probably have at some point because it was announced a few years ago, but this is like a Game Boy styled game. It looks like a top down like Link's Awakening or something like that for the Game Boy. But it also like feels modern in the same way that Shovel Knight did for the NES game. And it's like a top down action game where you get items and you can dig under, underground and pop out and jump over holes and stuff. It looks really, really cool.

• 42:07Jason Schreier?

  I suspect we'll see more of that because on Jeff Keighley's like big announcement thing, he included Yacht Club Games as like a participating partner. So maybe we'll get a release date for that, see more of it. That'll be really cool.

• 42:22Jason Schreier?

  Another one that I think pretty under the radar, again, I have pretty low expectations for the Xbox thing, but one thing that we could see is the next game from In Exile, which is the makers of Wasteland 3. And they announced this game Clockwork Revolution. Do you guys remember this at the last Xbox showcase? That game looked pretty cool from what we saw. It's a talented team over there, very Bioshock-y, but they're an RPG developer. So it's kind of like, I'm sure it'll have a lot of RPG elements in it as well. So that could be an exciting one that we see.

• 42:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Polygon's headline says, "In Exile's new game isn't Bioshock Infinite 2, it's something else."

• 42:58Jason Schreier?

  That's a, yeah.

• 42:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Very clear headline there.

• 43:00Jason Schreier?

  That is very, that is accurate.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  In case you're wondering what it is, we told you, okay? It's a different game.

• 43:06Jason Schreier?

  And then, yeah, maybe, I'm sure a couple of moonshots out there that people might have. We got our first look at Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at one of these Keighley things a few years ago. So I mean, I guess it's possible that part three could be announced.

• 43:22Kirk Hamilton?

  We see a title card for Reunion.

• 43:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, maybe. Maybe a little too early for that.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Do we know it's called Reunion? Or is that so heavily rumored that it felt true when you said it just now?

• 43:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, that's the crisis core thing.

• 43:34Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, crisis core.

• 43:35Kirk Hamilton?

  We've been over this.

• 43:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they can. They already used it. They already shot that bullet.

• 43:40Kirk Hamilton?

  They can do whatever they want. They don't follow the rules, man. They're mavericks.

• 43:43Jason Schreier?

  That's true. I mean, they could call it Reunion over four minus two divided by forty five.

• 43:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Exactly.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And that would be the perfect title that would perfectly explain everything that's happening in the game.

• 43:53Kirk Hamilton?

  That's actually Maddy's prediction.

• 43:55Jason Schreier?

  They're actually gonna call it Final Fantasy VII Expedition Thirty Three.

• 44:01Jason Schreier?

  And yeah, I mean, I don't know. Other cool stuff. Maybe we'll see a Nintendo thing. Maybe we'll see a PlayStation thing. There have been rumors about a God of War, like 2D spin off thing. So that'd be cool to see.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Do we feel like there's gonna be other stuff throughout the month of June? Like last year, I feel like we had a pretty solid, like even though it wasn't E3, when you kind of took it zoomed out, Jason style, if you zoomed out, you could kind of look at it and be like, there was sort of an E3 in the month of June. If you kind of put all those things together, which they weren't side by side. This year, I don't know if the picture's as clear yet, but I could see it maybe happening.

• 44:46Jason Schreier?

  Last year PlayStation had a their own like stream thing, whatever it's called, State of Play. The week before Summer Games Fest. So for all we know, we're recording this on Monday, like there could already have been one.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe they surprise dropped one after we recorded this.

• 45:02Jason Schreier?

  It's not out of the realm of question. And then Nintendo could also have a direct. We don't know.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  I mean, we still need to know when Metroid's coming out. I gotta know when Metroid's coming out.

• 45:10Jason Schreier?

  One of the nice things about E3 is that this is all planned out and telegraphed in advance.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Yes, that was nice. And we knew when it was occurring. That was cool, as opposed to just logging into work one day and frantically being like, ah, this is happening now.

• 45:25Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 45:25Kirk Hamilton?

  2025, baby. Probably do things now. We do it live.

• 45:29Jason Schreier?

  It is really, man, every year I just miss E3 more and more. Cause like Summer Games Fest, it's nice having this campus event where it's pretty quiet and you don't have to wait online and you don't have to like shovel through crowds to get to things and all your appointments are very close together. But the excitement of E3 was unparalleled and I miss that a lot. But hey, if anyone else will be in LA for Summer Games Fest, I will be at the, not Airport Hilton, but the JDL lobby pretty much every night.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, come say hi.

• 46:00Jason Schreier?

  So come say hi if you see me, if you see Maddie, if you see us hanging out, playing Mario Kart, come say hi. All right, let's take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  After 400 episodes, the Maximum Film Universe is kicking off a brand new phase.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  We have got a brand new host, hilarious writer and comedian Kevin Avery.

• 46:23Speaker 05

  Hey, that's me.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  Kevin's teaming up with me, film critic Alonso Duraldi.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  And me, producer and film festival programmer Dreya Clark.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  Together, we're taking on summer blockbuster season by talking about some of the biggest movies in theaters.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  That makes this the perfect time to join the Maximum Film gang.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  Reserve your Maximum Film ticket.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Pre-order your Maximum Film custom popcorn bucket.

• 46:45Kirk Hamilton?

  We're trying to say it's a great time to start listening to the podcast.

• 46:48Speaker 03

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• 47:41Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. It's time for One More Thing. Kirk, start us off.

• 47:45Kirk Hamilton?

  My One More Thing is Hacks, season four, the most recent season of HBO's Hacks. Wonderful show that I have talked about on the show before, starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbender. Jean Smart playing Deborah Vance, a sort of Joan Rivers-type stand-up comedian, who is old and set in her ways and incredibly famous and successful, but also, you know,

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Washed.

• 48:10Kirk Hamilton?

  A little bit calcified. Yeah. And then Hannah Einbender as a young, 20-something writer, Ava, who is hired to come on as a writer to kind of help her punch up her material. And that is in season one. And this show has become really just the story of an intergenerational friendship and an intergenerational professional working relationship.

• 48:31Jason Schreier?

  Slash animosity.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, slash like toxic co-dependence.

• 48:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Very complicated friendship for sure. I mean, Deborah Vance is a complicated lady. Ava, a little more of a run-of-the-mill person, but being friends with someone like Deborah Vance would be, I think, an incredibly complicated and unique experience. And clearly, that is depicted in this show.

• 48:54Jason Schreier?

  So how's season four?

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:56Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really good, man. So every time they make a new season of this show, I have that sinking feeling, that nervous feeling, when a fantastic show that ended really strong at the end of the previous season decides to do another one. You know, it's like the third encore, and the second encore was way better than it had any right to be. And you don't know if the band has any hits left. And then they come out again. And you're like, oh, God, is this gonna get weird? Are we gonna start wanting to go home? And yet, they kind of keep bringing it. And they did it yet again in season four.

• 49:26Jason Schreier?

  That's awesome.

• 49:27Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a terrific season.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:29Kirk Hamilton?

  And yeah, I would say I'm very curious where they're going to go with it next. It seems that because this show keeps getting award nominations and wins, it is really celebrated critically, and I believe watched by a fair number of people, that it has not been zazlav'd yet. It's the kind of show, this beloved, really interesting, female-led comedy with a lot of really great character writing. You could imagine just being cut off at the knees by someone like, you know, people like the people who run HBO, but so far, so good. So they keep making new seasons and season four does end with a sort of setup for season five.

• 50:01Jason Schreier?

  Can I just interject here, worth noting, not the people who run HBO. I think Casey Boy is the guy who runs HBO is the guy who's been there for 20 years. It's the people who run HBO's parent company, worth noting, worth noting.

• 50:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Good point, though I can call it HBO now because they've rebranded back to being HBO. They've undone the worst rebrand possibly in media history, where they dropped the HBO. And all of the rest of us didn't, we just said, no, we're gonna keep calling it HBO.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  And then they, they finally admitted that we had ignored it and they, they came back.

• 50:31Kirk Hamilton?

  They're like, okay, fine, you guys win. Yeah, so anyways, just really quick synopsis of the season. If you recall at the end of season three, Deborah finally gets late night. So she becomes essentially the host of The Tonight Show, which has been a lifelong dream of hers. She and Ava do it together, but then at the very end, she tries to fire Ava as her lead writer in a pretty, a pretty like harsh move, a really, you know, cruel betrayal and tries to cut Ava loose. And, and then Ava blackmails her into forcing, you know, forcing her to keep her in the job. And then it ends with them just like absolutely at loggerheads. They have just betrayed one another and are ready to fight, which is pretty intense. And the season begins there.

• 51:14Kirk Hamilton?

  And of course it is the story of them working through that and the kind of catastrophe of their constant battling as they try to do something really unprecedented with the first woman to host late night and also all of these network pressures and this, this whole new world where they're in Los Angeles now, they've left Las Vegas and they're just trying to compete on a much bigger stage with much higher stakes and a more corporate environment. So it's all great. It's just, it works again. It's, it's a lot of the same kinds of beats as they sort of find their way back to one another. And I will say, I was kind of ready for them to be friends again. I think, I think this may be the last time the show can really do the true war between

• 51:56Kirk Hamilton?

  the two of them, because we've done that several times and this It's really intense, but also you're really watching the show because they love one another and you want to see them reconcile. I think that I don't really know what they're gonna do in the next season, but I'm actually looking forward to them exploring some other aspects of their relationship.

• 52:14Jason Schreier?

  Is season five supposed to be the last one? Like, the next one, is that gonna be the last one?

• 52:18Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, each of these seasons could be the last. They could have ended here. This would be fine. I think it, if you would feel a little unresolved, but, but they, they do a good job of setting something up. And yeah, I could see the next season being the last one. At some point, they'll have to end it, and I do hope they go out on a high note. And I wanna shout out just two things about this show that I love. First is Paul W. Downs, who is one of the writers and who plays Jimmy. He's amazing. Oh, it's actually three, because Megan Stattler is her name. She plays Kayla. She is like, I think she's about to blow up. I think she has a show coming out that she's gonna star in. She is one of the funniest and most ferocious comedians. Anyone who's watched the show knows what I'm talking about. She's just like an unstoppable force on screen and just one of the funniest people.

• 53:03Kirk Hamilton?

  And the two of them are just so much fun together. They're now partners at a, at an agency that they run together, and I just love both of them. And then the last shout out, and it's something that I don't see a lot of people talking about with the show, is the music actually is really great. It's composed by Carlos Rafael Rivera. He wrote the original themes, and David Stahl composed for later seasons. And it's this really subtle score. A lot of the, the show gets by on placement. They pick these wonderful pop songs, especially at the ends of episodes. A lot of times, an episode will end and the credits will be playing, and I'll be holding up my phone to Shazam whatever song it is, because it's some great song. But there's this little piano motif. Maybe I'll play it if I can find it online behind this.

• 54:00Kirk Hamilton?

  It's kind of jazzy. It's this little, if you've watched the show, you know what I'm talking about. It plays during moments of real sadness or emotion. And it's just this little jazzy piano lick.

• 54:21Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not the choice I would ever think to make. And I would think that 95% of composers wouldn't. And yet, it's so perfect. And every time it plays, it just captures something nostalgic and sad and heartfelt. It's like, perfect. So I love the music to the show, too. So anyways, Hacks, season four. Great show. Great season.

• 54:44Jason Schreier?

  Cool.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  I will watch this. I'm very excited.

• 54:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, me too.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  I'm glad to hear it's over. I have to wait for Hacks to be over.

• 54:50Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I've been waiting.

• 54:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, you could just blast through the whole thing.

• 54:52Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because season three was really good. Maddy, what's your one more thing?

• 54:56Speaker 01

  My one more thing is a documentary. It's Pride Month, so every streaming service is putting out documentaries, like the one I'm about to describe, which is Queens and Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo. This is actually an older documentary. It's from 2014, I think. I think we watched it on Hulu, don't quote me, but we just saw it got added and we were like, oh, cool. And then partway through, Dina was like, this is here because of Pride Month, right? And I was like, right, of course. Anyway, like the title says, it's about the gay rodeo, which is an association of people who do rodeo sports, who are queer, and a couple of them are straight. And throughout the entire documentary, everyone who participates

• 55:40Speaker 01

  in gay rodeo events refers to the other rodeo as the straight rodeo, which I just personally find really funny, just as an aside. Like, they don't, it's a totally logical way to refer to the other rodeo, but yeah. Also, because this documentary takes place in 2014, it's a sort of unwittingly a really fascinating historical document because...

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Even though that doesn't seem like it was that long ago, if you watch this documentary, it feels like a trillion years ago because it's like gay marriage wasn't actually legal everywhere yet. There's a lot of like moments of just explicit discrimination that happened to them where they try to get events booked and people just say no and are just like, we won't rent to a gay rodeo, just straight up.

• 56:26Jason Schreier?

  Can I just pause for one second?

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Are you gonna ask where the rodeo is?

• 56:29Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. No, I know what a rodeo is. A gay rodeo different than a rodeo? Like, how is it different?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  No. So, okay, so why would they have it is, I guess it begs the question, which seemed obvious to me, because of homophobia? Because many of these rodeo riders, they're riding bucking broncos, they're doing all the rodeo events, all the identical rodeo events. Just in early rodeo days, straight men didn't want any gay guys to be at the rodeo. So if you were out at all, you couldn't be at the rodeo, just straight up. And especially, they didn't want women to ride. And so the gay rodeo also was like, we'll let women be riders. Many of those women, perhaps unshockingly, also, you know, are somewhere on the queer spectrum. Maybe not shocking that many of these are very butch women that

• 57:17Speaker 01

  want to get out there and ride the freaking broncos and do extremely terrifying physical feats. So it makes sense then that like, sort of in reaction to the straight rodeo, this other sort of underground rodeo would emerge many decades ago, and then it kind of became its own organization that is sort of like, I don't want to say it has a rivalry, but like, the documentary kind of presents it as like, almost a tragic other world to the straight rodeo, as it were, where it's like, all these people who are like, we felt kind of boxed out of these events. Many of these are events that are taking, held in the deep south, or like, small towns, areas where, you know, being a queer person just really isn't socially acceptable, but queer people are born everywhere. Like, that just

• 58:00Speaker 01

  happens. And some of them grow up in farms, and these are like, the activities that they enjoy doing, and they still want to do them, even if they... Don't pass a straight or don't care to pass a straight. So like, yeah, long and short, that's why the gay rodeo exists, but there's certainly gay people in the straight rodeo, as they call it in this. And I'm sure nowadays that's different.

• 58:21Jason Schreier?

  But the gay rodeo, the actual activities they do are pretty, are the exact same.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Are the same. They have a couple of events that are just for the gay rodeo. Like, they, they have rodeo clowns as well, but they also have drag performers along with rodeo clowns. And then they have, um, one event that I remember is where they put panties on a goat, which from what I understand, the straight rodeo doesn't have a race where you try to put a pair of panties on a goat. But like, that sounds like a comedy event, but in the movie, they take it deadly seriously. Like they are.

• 58:51Kirk Hamilton?

  We are getting these panties on that goat.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  There's no smiles. They like, are like, we're getting them on that goat. And it is like, there's the seconds ticking down. You're like rooting for certain performers. Anyway.

• 59:02Jason Schreier?

  And that also sounds like it could be a bachelorette event.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  It could be. I mean, I, I also want to make this documentary sound too fun though, because like, it's also really sad. Like, a lot of the stories that the performers tell in it are them being like, I didn't get to ride or like participate in these events and was discriminated against growing up. And like, this was the place where I felt like I could just be considered normal, essentially, which is also sad because I'm like, these are just rodeo events. But yeah, I, I don't know. It also made me wish that there was a rodeo event that we could attend in Massachusetts, but it's not a thing here. Um, it's really only a thing in certain parts of the country. And so it's like a really specific, both historical snapshot and local snapshot of like, these queer subcultures that frankly,

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I knew nothing at all about. So if you're like me and you think that's interesting, I recommend it. It's called Queens and Cowboys. It's from 2014. And, um, times have changed since then, but also have they? And I hope we don't go back to whatever this was. That's, that's my thought on that.

• 1:00:05Jason Schreier?

  I'm pretty sure there's a rodeo in Mohegan Sun, the casino.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  But is it, is it a gay rodeo? No. But I could go to the straight rodeo.

• 1:00:16Jason Schreier?

  It's like a bull riding thing, I think. I remember, well, maybe this is another casino. I was at a casino. I have a very specific memory of being at a casino, might have been Mohegan Sun, and everybody around me was just wearing cowboy hats. And I was so confused until I found out that the rodeo was there.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  They're scary events. I mean, they're very dangerous. That's another thing about this documentary is that you're like, you're following a couple of specific like cowboys and cowgirls as they're competing in certain events. So it's also like a classic sports movie where you're like rooting for them. And they don't all win. And some of them, you're just like, why are you doing this? You've broken your collarbone like 600 times. I'm so concerned. Like, so there's, there's also just like the tension of watching people partake in an extraordinarily dangerous sport because they're like, this is my thing.

• 1:00:59Jason Schreier?

  Cruel to the animals? Is that something they address at all?

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Nah, the animals are fine. It's just that the people are gonna freaking die. The Brockhams are having a good time out there, at least from what I can tell.

• 1:01:09Jason Schreier?

  The goat wants to wear those panties.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  The goat's fine, okay?

• 1:01:15Kirk Hamilton?

  The other day I saw a guy wearing the hat that says, this actually is my first rodeo, and that is a pretty good hat.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  That's a good hat.

• 1:01:21Jason Schreier?

  That's good. Cool. I will finish this off. My one more thing is a book called The Doorman by Chris Pavone. It just came out and it is very appropriate because it tackles the exact same themes of, as your friends and neighbors that we were talking about last week. So it's a very enjoyable read. This is like, it's kind of, it's a mix of like literary fiction and a thriller. Most of the thriller stuff happens in kind of the back, back like 25% of the book, but it kind of hangs over it. And it's set in this New York City luxury apartment building that is a lot like the Dakota, if you guys know the building. That is perhaps the most infamous for being the building that John Lennon was shot outside of.

• 1:02:06Jason Schreier?

  And so there's like a little memorial for him right outside of the Dakota. I believe he was living in that building at the time. A lot of famous people like celebrities have lived there over the years and tourists sometimes gawk outside of it. It's right on Central Park. It's it's just a nice old fashioned like New York City building. And so this is set in in a fictional version called The Bohemia. And there are three main characters. One is the doorman named Chickie Diaz and the other two are tenants. One is kind of one is this guy in his 50s who is a little bit down on his luck, just found out that he has a heart condition, might die soon, is like a resident on kind of

• 1:02:48Jason Schreier?

  one of the bottom floors of the Dakota because they can afford to be there, but they can't afford to be at the very top. They they're just kind of cracking it. And then the third protagonist is this woman named Emily, who is married to a bazillionaire and is like lives at the top and spends most of her time managing her household budget of $4 million per year. And the book follows their lives, the three lives and how they intersect and covers a lot of things. It's all it all takes place over the course of a single day. And during that day, there is a giant protest because a black person has been shot by police in the city. And so there's a

• 1:03:29Jason Schreier?

  big protest of Black Lives Matter people. And then at the same time, there's a counter protest by like paramilitary MAGA types. And so that tension is kind of like spilling over. At the same time, all of these three characters have their own kind of problems and there's some kind of seedy underbelly stuff. Chickie Diaz, for example, the doorman owes a lot of money to some bad people and has to deal with that. And it's really fascinating. It's a really good just kind of propulsive book that handles the tension of this all really well and just has some interesting satire and interesting things to say. Nothing you haven't seen before or heard before, but I always find the conversation, just like in Your Friends and Neighbors, Kirk's

• 1:04:12Jason Schreier?

  former thing from last week, I always feel find that conversation around wealth and who has it and what it means and what the different levels of it are. I always find that to be super fascinating. And so I really enjoy. Reading this even from that perspective. Also, it's worth noting, if you're considering this book, that Emily's husband, this guy Witt, who's the billionaire who she's married to and she grows to loathe, he is possibly the worst person, like one of those villains that just like has zero redeemable qualities and you just grow to hate so much. There's this one scene where they are at an art gallery and he just spends the entire time getting drunk and complaining that not enough white people are being honored at

• 1:04:56Jason Schreier?

  this, this art gallery event. So he's one of those types and it makes for a delicious read in many ways. I really enjoyed it. Once again, it's called The Doorman by Chris Pavone, and it's got a lot of just kind of interesting observations. I think that like, there's some stuff in there like, that I felt like I wasn't agreeing necessarily with the author, but I don't think that makes for a bad book. Like even if an author happens to have different political views, maybe like more rightward political views that didn't make the book any more interesting to me, or any, or any less interesting, or any less kind of fun for me to read. So I really enjoyed it.

• 1:05:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice.

• 1:05:36Jason Schreier?

  Cool.

• 1:05:36Kirk Hamilton?

  I finished Long Island Compromise over the weekend.

• 1:05:38Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:05:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Good book. Good ending. She really sticks the ending.

• 1:05:41Jason Schreier?

  So good. Oh man, so good. Well, she does tell you at the very beginning, you want to hear a story with a terrible ending.

• 1:05:47Kirk Hamilton?

  It's true.

• 1:05:48Jason Schreier?

  She delivers on that.

• 1:05:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, yeah, good book.

• 1:05:51Jason Schreier?

  Yes, phenomenal book. I'm thinking about re-reading it. That was my favorite book of, of last year. All right, that is it for this week's episode. Next week, we will actually have Switch 2s and we can maybe talk about them a little bit more in depth. And we could be like, well, it is what you expected. It's a bigger, better Switch, okay?

• 1:06:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Pretty much listened to our episode from last week.

• 1:06:12Jason Schreier?

  We could have done just a fake review this week and just been like, yep.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Well, Kirk has one. He has that paper one. He's just not giving us any impressions of it.

• 1:06:21Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a lot like my paper switch.

• 1:06:23Jason Schreier?

  Kirk has hopes, hopes and dreams and imagination. All right, guys, I will see, well, Maddy, I'll see you in a couple of days in Los Angeles. Kirk, I'll see you next week.

• 1:06:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, have fun in LA and I'll see both of you next week.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:06:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom Gijay. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to tripleclickatmaximumfun.org, and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:07:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.