DF Direct Weekly #269: GTA 6 News Reaction, UE5 Upgrades, UE6, Gears E-Day Tech Demo

[00:02] Why hello there. A warm welcome of sorts

[00:05] this week to DF Direct Weekly. It is

[00:07] indeed warm. We're having a heat wave

[00:09] here in Europe. Uh I'm John Lynaman.

[00:11] Richard Lead Better is out currently. He

[00:13] is very busy working on a big video. So

[00:16] he asked me to take over. So of course I

[00:19] brought along my good friends here.

[00:20] First starting with Oliver McKenzie.

[00:23] >> Yes. John, it's been a little bit hot

[00:25] here as well, but not quite as

[00:26] sweltering as I think it is where you

[00:28] are.

[00:30] Indeed, we're approaching 35C. It's in

[00:32] the '9s if you're in Fahrenheit. And

[00:34] then, of course, we also brought along

[00:37] the mainstay, the Rock himself for the

[00:40] Digital Foundry Channel. It's Tom

[00:42] Morgan.

[00:43] >> Hello, John. How you doing? Yeah, 22

[00:46] degrees here in Brighton. Got the

[00:48] curtains closed. Uh, no air con, alas,

[00:51] but uh, we're going to push on through

[00:52] regardless.

[00:53] >> Wonderful. Yeah, we have a lot of stuff

[00:54] to talk about today. We've got the

[00:56] latest on GTA 6. We're going to micro

[00:59] analyze like 7 seconds or less of

[01:01] footage. We're going to talk about the

[01:02] new Unreal stuff. There is some good

[01:05] news coming out of that. There's Gears

[01:06] of War stuff and a lot more to talk

[01:08] about today. Uh but first, uh I did want

[01:11] to bring some attention to the site.

[01:13] We've got Will Jud who was on recently

[01:15] actually. It's lovely to have him back

[01:17] who's been doing a lot of work over on

[01:19] the site, including some cool new

[01:20] articles. He's got stuff about the Intel

[01:24] and Nvidia collaboration. uh the AMD

[01:27] crossover, the Intel AMD crossover point

[01:30] that's nine months away. There's the

[01:32] ultra expensive $3,000 PS5 SSD, which

[01:36] we'll talk about later cuz it is kind of

[01:38] uh crazy. And even a Sonic Adventure 2

[01:41] mechanical keyboard, which I have to

[01:43] admit looks pretty cool. So, all that

[01:45] and more over on the website. Check it

[01:47] out. And of course, check out our

[01:49] Patreon and all that stuff. But before

[01:51] we jump into the episode, first here's a

[01:54] word from our sponsor.

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[03:16] So, gentlemen, a lot of news this week,

[03:18] but before we dive into GTA 6, I do want

[03:20] to give a quick uh sort of I guess

[03:24] eulogy, if you will, for Mr. Bobby

[03:27] Prince, who passed away recently this

[03:30] week at the age of 81. He was the

[03:32] original composer of Doom, Doom Nukem

[03:34] 3D, so many other classic '90s games, an

[03:37] absolute legend. Uh, and I was really

[03:40] saddened by this news this morning. So,

[03:42] I did at least want to give a shout out

[03:44] to his great work, remind people of what

[03:47] he's done in the past, and yeah, truly

[03:50] an awesome influence in our game

[03:52] industry, a great composer on the

[03:54] Western side. So, we'll miss you, Bobby.

[03:58] But right, of course, when we started

[04:00] this uh show this week, we thought we

[04:02] were going to be jumping right into the

[04:03] Unreal Fest stuff, but it turns out

[04:05] Rockstar had a little surprise for us

[04:07] all. They announced that pre-orders are

[04:09] going live soon for GTA 6. They also did

[04:12] a box art reveal trailer, which is a

[04:15] very short little clip. Uh it's already

[04:18] amassed like 6 plus million views in

[04:21] less than 24 hours, which is uh rather

[04:24] impressive, I must say. But we got this

[04:26] nice little sort of like camera pan out

[04:28] of it. And people have been going nuts

[04:30] analyzing it. And I think from our

[04:33] perspective, the thing that really stood

[04:35] out is like we're trying to break down

[04:37] what they're doing for reflections. Um,

[04:40] man, this seems so silly because it's

[04:41] just it's almost nothing. But it it is

[04:44] it is kind of funny and light-hearted to

[04:46] be to looking at this so closely because

[04:48] based on what we've seen in the previous

[04:50] trailers, we do think that GTA 6 is

[04:52] using ray tracing uh for reflections,

[04:56] for lighting, all sorts of things. And

[04:59] this large open area here really helps

[05:02] us kind of understand what they're doing

[05:04] and also the drawbacks to it. Uh, and I

[05:07] think we've kind of determined that they

[05:08] are doing ray trace reflections with a

[05:11] bit of screen space tracing on top of

[05:14] it, which is relatively common. That's

[05:17] usually what you see in Unreal, for

[05:18] instance, where the BVH structure, the

[05:21] thing that they're tracing into actually

[05:23] is somewhat less detailed than what you

[05:26] actually see in the primary view. So,

[05:28] layering SSR sort of fills in those

[05:30] extra details. But, we noticed some

[05:32] weird anomalies with this one that kind

[05:34] of stood out. For instance, this Ferris

[05:36] suite on the distance and Oliver I think

[05:38] we were we we were talking about this on

[05:40] Slack yesterday and just kind of like I

[05:42] felt it's like wow we're talking about

[05:44] whether or not like why is this ferris

[05:47] wheel not showing in the reflection

[05:49] here. Uh and it it feels like we're

[05:51] really down the rabbit hole here but it

[05:53] is fun. So, I think it's possible that

[05:57] we're seeing something where they're

[05:58] simply not drawing every object that far

[06:00] out into the BBH and it's just like left

[06:03] out of that view. Um, but it's also not

[06:06] covered by screen space. Like, what do

[06:08] you think about this?

[06:10] >> Well, it's a very interesting and

[06:12] unusual combination of SSR and RT

[06:15] reflections. It seems to be in terms of

[06:17] this showing because we do know that the

[06:19] game is using RT reflections based on

[06:21] prior showings. We also know that it has

[06:23] SSR in some instances. Like for

[06:25] instance, in earlier trailers, we saw

[06:27] like there was a coaster on a table and

[06:29] the way that it was reflecting without

[06:31] showing the underside of that bowl or

[06:33] that coaster or whatever, it was

[06:34] indicating that there was some screen

[06:36] space information that was being reused

[06:38] in that reflection. Um, and in this

[06:40] showing, I think we're seeing some

[06:41] evidence of screen space reuse in terms

[06:43] of what we're seeing in the bottom left

[06:45] hand side of the screen where there's

[06:46] very clearly um information in on screen

[06:49] that's being disccluded. and it's

[06:51] revealing new uh reflection information

[06:54] there. Um, but the curious thing is that

[06:57] in other areas like in that ferris

[06:59] wheel, we would usually expect there to

[07:01] be some kind of reflection showing in

[07:03] the water there with SSR typically, not

[07:05] in every case, but typically, and it's

[07:07] not showing there. And then also in the

[07:10] uh kind of towards the bottom right edge

[07:12] of that uh image, we're also seeing an

[07:15] interesting area where there's uh a

[07:17] bridge that's being lit quite brightly

[07:20] and it's not showing occlusion um

[07:23] between the uh bridge and the light

[07:25] sources and there's also no evidence of

[07:27] screen space information reuse there in

[07:30] terms of the appearance of occlusion and

[07:32] discclusion along that edge. So I I I

[07:36] don't know quite what to make of this.

[07:37] And this is the kind of funny issue

[07:39] where like if we literally had

[07:43] 5 seconds with the camera here, we could

[07:46] probably work out roughly what's going

[07:48] on.

[07:48] >> Oh yeah.

[07:49] >> But in the in the universe of looking

[07:50] through this like very limited uh

[07:53] panning shot without much movement at

[07:55] all in the camera, um I'm I'm a little

[07:57] bit less certain, but I think there's

[07:59] probably some RT reflection component

[08:02] here. Prior GTA games have used I think

[08:05] uh reflection maps in GTA 5 I believe

[08:09] they were using um if I'm not mistaken.

[08:12] Uh but here I suspect based on the much

[08:16] higher complexity of the world and based

[08:17] on the appearance of RTM prior showings

[08:19] and based on the fact that we are seeing

[08:21] like some perspective correct reflection

[08:24] detail when screen space information

[08:26] isn't available along that left edge and

[08:28] a couple other artifacts. I think what

[08:30] we're seeing is SSR layered on top of

[08:32] RT, but behaving in a slightly unusual

[08:34] way that we wouldn't necessarily expect,

[08:36] but this is all basically as expected. I

[08:39] would stress like this is all pretty

[08:41] normal stuff for a game this generation.

[08:43] And it makes complete sense to use a

[08:46] combination of SSR for small details for

[08:49] details that might be excluded from PVH,

[08:51] things like this. Um, in combination

[08:52] with RT, that's like an industry

[08:54] standard at this point. This is all

[08:56] pretty expected stuff. Although the game

[08:58] obviously looks quite extraordinary, I

[08:59] would say.

[09:01] >> Yeah. And beyond the reflection stuff, I

[09:03] also really like how so this scene has a

[09:06] lot of lights in it. Right. Right.

[09:08] >> As you would expect from a longdistance

[09:10] view, but the the distance at which

[09:12] these lights remain visible is very

[09:14] impressive, I think, where it really

[09:16] looks like each little point light is

[09:18] represented well within the scene, which

[09:20] is nice to see. You can't always expect

[09:22] that. I also noticed they've got that

[09:25] they seem to be using a technique

[09:27] similar to something like Marvel

[09:28] Spider-Man and a few others where it's

[09:31] like a parallax trick on the building

[09:33] surfaces to give the impression of like

[09:35] 3D interiors.

[09:37] >> Um, but all this is the kind of stuff we

[09:39] just glean from looking at this very

[09:41] tiny clip. And I think, you know, once

[09:43] you get more time with it, if you

[09:45] actually just move the camera at all,

[09:46] like you said, you would instantly

[09:48] understand like, oh, okay, this is what

[09:49] they're doing. But it is it is fun to

[09:52] speculate and look at this uh and kind

[09:54] of see how far we've come along that. I

[09:57] mean Tom, you were breaking this down as

[09:59] well. What are your thoughts on what

[10:01] we're seeing here? Anything particular

[10:03] stand out to you?

[10:05] >> Uh I mean it's it's for sure miss mixing

[10:08] that SSR and uh rate tracing. I mean in

[10:10] a similar way we've seen to uh a lot of

[10:13] titles this generation. Lumen stuff like

[10:16] comes to mind. Anything using lumen?

[10:19] Yeah, it's a yeah, all the oddities

[10:22] associated with those techniques are

[10:24] there. As well as Oliver's already

[10:25] mentioned, there's a lacking lack of uh

[10:28] shading to some reflected elements. Uh

[10:31] you know, on the left side, I guess uh

[10:34] there's some structures near the bay

[10:36] there, and it's just missing any sort of

[10:39] any of the shading on the actual part

[10:42] above water in the reflection.

[10:45] And uh obviously you know left side of

[10:46] the image there's SSR artifacts as well.

[10:48] So those two things suggest you know a a

[10:51] BVH uh for the the ray tracing and uh

[10:55] the classic occlusion artifacts with

[10:57] SSR. Um

[10:59] >> yeah I'm sure you know it's funny having

[11:01] uh this feed because it's accessible on

[11:04] the this video we're talking about

[11:06] wasn't exactly in the trailer itself

[11:08] with the

[11:09] >> cover up. It was on the website that

[11:13] revealed the video and it's just a new

[11:15] component embedded within the website as

[11:17] you scroll up and down. It's a very

[11:19] slick website. Go to GTA 6 and it's like

[11:22] go to the high quality setting if you

[11:24] can select that by going to the menus

[11:27] and suddenly you get this graphic. You

[11:29] can scroll up and down and this massive

[11:31] view quality is reasonable and you can

[11:33] kind of inspect for yourselves, you

[11:35] know, go get the magnifying glass out

[11:38] and see what you reckon. But yeah, it

[11:40] for to my eyes SSR and rate tracing

[11:42] makes the most sense.

[11:44] >> Indeed. Indeed. But I guess there's not

[11:47] much more to say other than that. But it

[11:48] is it is kind of fun to look closely at

[11:51] this stuff because I mean when you see

[11:53] those numbers and the amount of views

[11:55] this thing is getting just it is really

[11:57] crazy. There is no bigger game in the

[12:00] world I would say right now that's

[12:02] upcoming.

[12:03] >> And it's fun to look at something where

[12:05] money is simply no object here. like

[12:08] they're able to do whatever they need to

[12:10] do to make this game uh because of this.

[12:13] So, we'll definitely be keeping an eye

[12:16] out and I'm excited just to see what

[12:17] their tech can offer because it feels

[12:20] like they've kind of quietly been

[12:21] building stuff in the background doing

[12:23] their own thing and that's always fun to

[12:25] see. So, obviously we will be looking at

[12:29] that when it releases hopefully later

[12:31] this year.

[12:33] But let's move on to the next topic. All

[12:36] right, this week it was Unreal Fest and

[12:38] it was unreal. There was a lot of stuff

[12:40] coming out of here, uh, including a lot

[12:42] of news from Epic itself, um, both about

[12:46] Unreal Engine 5 and the upcoming Unreal

[12:49] Engine 6. We also got some new tech demo

[12:51] stuff, including a nice look at Gears of

[12:53] War Eday, uh, which is really cool. But

[12:57] let's start with Unreal Engine 5.8

[13:00] because this actually does have some

[13:02] nicities in it. And it kind of we're

[13:04] kind of reaching the point where uh a

[13:06] lot of things that were still in that

[13:08] early state or that pre-release state

[13:11] have now reached the official production

[13:13] ready status. Things like megalytes for

[13:16] instance are finally like officially

[13:18] production ready, ready to be used. Uh

[13:20] we're going to start seeing them in

[13:22] games. But the big news, I guess, for

[13:25] the game console world is this thing

[13:27] they called Lumen Light, which is a

[13:30] higher performance, lower requirement

[13:32] version of Lumen designed to provide

[13:34] results similar to the full fat Lumen,

[13:38] uh, but with a reduced CPU cost and

[13:41] reduced over overhead in a way that

[13:43] makes it feasible for platforms such as

[13:45] Switch 2 where it's largely not existed,

[13:48] Oliver. Right. Like, and this is this is

[13:50] something where it feels like it could

[13:52] genuinely make a big difference for

[13:54] upcoming multiplatform releases because

[13:56] they stress that this isn't something

[13:58] you need to like customize specifically

[14:02] for each platform. It's a seamless sort

[14:05] of like uh option. So, you essentially

[14:08] light your world one way and that is

[14:10] going to be work workable with Lumen

[14:12] Light as well

[14:14] >> as the as the larger more full fat

[14:16] experience right?

[14:18] >> Yeah. Yeah, I believe lumen light

[14:20] interesting technology. I think it's

[14:22] just a different name largely for what

[14:24] we saw a couple of weeks ago announced

[14:26] lung 5.8 which was the medium lumen

[14:29] setting. This seems to be something that

[14:30] is basically equivalent to that in so

[14:32] far as basically we're seeing a

[14:34] primarily probe based approach to lumen

[14:37] that still gives you the kind of

[14:39] lighting detail that you'd expect in

[14:41] broad strokes from Lumen but at a much

[14:43] lower performance penalty. Indeed,

[14:45] they're not only talking about Switch 2,

[14:47] they're talking about 60 FPS on Switch

[14:49] 2. So, that's really quite striking. Uh,

[14:53] very, very interesting here. Um, yeah,

[14:56] it it's a probased technique. I think it

[14:58] will mirror uh no pun intended the look

[15:02] of uh what we've seen from a lot of

[15:04] lumen titles on series to a large degree

[15:07] because for GI they do depend on this

[15:10] probebased

[15:12] uh lumen or radiance cache oriented

[15:14] lumen radiance probe oriented lumen but

[15:17] for reflections they're relying

[15:18] primarily on SSR with a rough specular

[15:21] fallback from the GI of course I'm sure

[15:23] you could switch you could ship a more

[15:26] involved version of this technique

[15:27] techique on switch 2, but the guidance

[15:29] from Epic is to basically use this probe

[15:32] based GI and then use SSR plus this

[15:35] rough specular fallback from the GI

[15:37] which is something we've seen in a lot

[15:39] of Switch uh seriess S titles including

[15:40] like Robocop very early on. I remember

[15:43] that being a prominently used this

[15:44] technique and we've seen many other

[15:46] titles I believe also expedition 33 is

[15:48] another prominent example of this on

[15:50] series.

[15:51] >> Um and yeah, the target here is up to 60

[15:53] fps on switch 2 and low-end handhelds

[15:55] things like that. So very very cool.

[15:58] There are also some other interesting

[15:59] announcements with UE5. Um the biggest

[16:02] announcement which I think John

[16:04] referenced I mean at least in terms of

[16:05] my own interests is that Megalytes is

[16:07] production ready and I think we were

[16:09] talking about it they demoed it a couple

[16:11] of years ago or about a year ago I think

[16:13] on

[16:15] >> Yeah. on PS5 running at I think 1080p at

[16:18] 30 fps and now they're showing it off in

[16:22] commercial software that's going to be

[16:24] shipping this year at a much better

[16:26] level of image quality I would argue

[16:27] although you know perhaps less intensive

[16:29] uh content in terms of its lighting at

[16:31] 60 fps in like Gears of War Eday which

[16:34] we'll talk about shortly which I think

[16:35] is

[16:35] >> and Halo which

[16:37] >> Halo yeah which are like super

[16:39] good-looking titles and relatively

[16:41] performant ones as well um perhaps you

[16:44] know in in the case of Halo. There's

[16:45] some image quality issues here and

[16:46] there, but like very impressive titles.

[16:48] Um, and yeah, I'm super looking forward

[16:51] to that. That just seems so cool. I

[16:53] can't believe this is shipping this

[16:54] generation at high performance. I

[16:56] remember Alex talking about it and he

[16:57] was like, "This is probably going to be

[16:58] next generation technology back in the

[17:00] day." Um, and it probably largely is

[17:02] designed to work really well next

[17:04] generation consoles. But the fact that

[17:06] it's running well on like a Series X,

[17:08] that's awesome. I think that's totally

[17:10] rad. And for those that aren't aware of

[17:13] it, then I guess the main benefit of

[17:15] this is that it allows artists to

[17:16] essentially place as many lights as they

[17:18] want in a scene. It removes the

[17:20] constraints of a performance bottleneck

[17:23] around each light source. And obviously

[17:25] things like deferred rendering and all

[17:27] that were already designed to reduce the

[17:28] light cost, but here like they can put

[17:31] shadow casting lights everywhere. And

[17:34] we're already seeing that. I mean,

[17:35] that's that's one of the things in the

[17:37] Gears of War EDay demo that they show

[17:39] off is just like every single light in

[17:42] that scene, and there's a lot of them uh

[17:44] produces lights and shadows. I think the

[17:47] part from that demo again that I really

[17:49] liked was the uh when I walked through

[17:50] the freezer section, and every single

[17:53] like light bulb inside the freezer is a

[17:56] light, which means that you actually get

[17:58] the correct glow, right? like when you

[18:00] walk into that area, it's there's an

[18:02] ambient light level increase because of

[18:04] the use of all these lights. And I think

[18:06] that's super super cool. Uh they also

[18:09] talked about uh that the shader compiler

[18:11] is continuously being improved. Uh they

[18:15] say it's they've already reduced shader

[18:19] count in Fortnite by 68%.

[18:23] And in addition, there's also pro

[18:25] improvements to the pipeline state

[18:27] objects. So, the PSOS, so there's

[18:29] improved caching, improved fallback, and

[18:32] it's just faster all around. Like the

[18:34] idea here, obviously, I think they

[18:36] referenced the Hitchhunter, uh, their

[18:38] own internal hitchhunter at Epic, who,

[18:40] uh, we showed up in one of his videos at

[18:42] one point. That was quite funny, but

[18:44] they really are putting a lot of effort

[18:46] into trying to wrangle this problem,

[18:49] right? and just find ways to reduce the

[18:52] total number of shaders, the time it

[18:54] takes to compile them, and all the other

[18:56] issues that are encountered with like

[18:58] PSOS as well that's leading to these

[19:00] stutters and long wait times during

[19:01] development. So, that's great. Uh,

[19:04] they're also talking about advanced

[19:05] shader delivery, which is a DX12 feature

[19:08] that's being ramped up. There's, oh,

[19:10] have you seen this, Tom? Mesh terrain.

[19:13] So, this is something really interesting

[19:15] because so I've made a lot of like stuff

[19:18] in Unreal myself now that I and one of

[19:21] the big limitations I found is like when

[19:23] you want to do like a big map, you're

[19:25] just using like height maps, right? And

[19:27] then you're placing

[19:28] >> individual meshes on top of that, but

[19:30] the height map itself, it's obviously

[19:32] limited in what you can do since it's a

[19:33] height field. You're kind of only

[19:35] limited to things sort of facing

[19:37] outward. So you can't like generate and

[19:39] carve terrain that like overlaps on

[19:42] itself and like has crevices and and all

[19:44] that kind of stuff. And that's where you

[19:46] would normally just have to like sort of

[19:48] kit bash things on top of it. But now

[19:51] they seem to be doing a full

[19:53] >> meshbased terrain system here. And I'll

[19:56] be curious to see how it works that

[19:57] allows you to manipulate the terrain in

[19:59] much more detail uh to create overhangs

[20:02] and all that. And they're saying it uses

[20:04] a smaller memory footprint, making it

[20:07] even lighter weight. So, I don't know.

[20:10] Um Tom, as somebody that covers a lot of

[20:13] Bethesda games, not that are Unreal, uh

[20:16] you you've got a lot of experience

[20:18] walking around height maps.

[20:20] >> Yeah, I guess subliminally where there's

[20:22] been a lot of that. Um but generally

[20:25] like the the the the back end of the

[20:27] presentation seems to be very much

[20:28] focused on were the benefits for people

[20:31] using tools and these uh you know editor

[20:35] level uh features that will really pay

[20:38] dividends for just the workflow of

[20:41] >> and we we bemoone the uh how widespread

[20:44] Unreal Engine 5 is but we've also got to

[20:47] accept that for a lot of indie

[20:49] developers AA developers it's great to

[20:51] have all these tools just gifted to you

[20:54] right out of the gate. And they've got

[20:57] another one in in here which they

[20:58] touched on which relates to performance

[21:00] capture without markers

[21:03] >> which is very cool and um just needs you

[21:06] know I I I'm wondering how uh accurate

[21:10] this is. But they seem pretty confident

[21:12] that you can get full body motion

[21:13] capture and for the um Unreal Engine

[21:17] editor to interpret bits that are

[21:19] malleable. So you can tweak it later on

[21:22] and adjust for animation.

[21:24] >> So it looks very um yeah useful for a

[21:28] developer to just jump in there if they

[21:30] don't have the technology to get the

[21:32] full marker set up and go to a you know

[21:35] proper u room to capture all this stuff.

[21:38] >> Yeah. So, I agree. That's one that's

[21:40] actually one of the most exciting things

[21:42] because that also opens this up to

[21:44] smaller creators now, right? Uh they

[21:46] were demonstrating that you can do this

[21:48] from video. So, you just take a video

[21:50] feed and pipe this through and it's able

[21:51] to essentially pull off the the

[21:54] performance capture onto a model, which

[21:56] is, you know, it could could be big news

[21:58] for VTubers.

[22:01] No, but like

[22:02] >> this is an interesting way to sort of

[22:04] like get that sort of realistic

[22:05] animation but without any of those

[22:07] expensive setups. Just film it possibly

[22:09] even it's like a phone camera. And they

[22:11] actually showed examples of taking old

[22:13] movie footage, dropping it in there, and

[22:16] then mapping the movements from that

[22:17] footage directly into a character model.

[22:19] So, I'll we'll be watching that. Uh, and

[22:23] I guess the last thing that I liked

[22:24] visually, it's not really relevant to

[22:26] games, is they showed that their offline

[22:29] depth of field render. And I do actually

[22:31] use the offline rendering in Unreal.

[22:33] That's what I use the most when doing

[22:35] video stuff sometimes. It's like

[22:37] rendering something out from Unreal's

[22:39] like sort of sequence editor. Like you

[22:41] make a nice looking scene, some models

[22:43] in the scene, but then when you render

[22:45] it out, you can take advantage of the

[22:47] offline uh super slow by the way

[22:50] rendering uh to get really fancy

[22:52] effects. But now they're handling depth

[22:53] of field like a real camera now and how

[22:56] it like works with the scene, which

[22:58] should look really really cool. Uh, and

[23:00] it does look cool in the examples that

[23:01] they showed. So, lots of nice stuff

[23:04] happening there. Um, but obviously

[23:07] Oliver, the big thing to come out of

[23:09] that as far as games are concerned is uh

[23:12] Kate Rener, the tech director at the

[23:14] Coalition, who she is extremely smart,

[23:17] legendary person, was also the tech

[23:19] director on uh the SSX games by the way.

[23:23] So, one of my favorite classic series

[23:25] >> and it's been around for a long time

[23:28] doing this stuff

[23:29] >> and The Coalition definitely one of the

[23:31] best studios in the world when it comes

[23:33] to utilizing Unreal. And yeah, based on

[23:35] that recent demo, the results they're

[23:37] showing so far are excellent. But this

[23:40] new demo essentially showed the game

[23:41] running at 60 FPS on Xbox Series X. It

[23:44] focused on that sort of like supermarket

[23:46] location that was in the demo. And

[23:48] there's a couple things that really

[23:50] caught my eye here. First of all, I

[23:51] already mentioned there's the mega

[23:53] lights, and they definitely highlighted

[23:55] that where every single light in that

[23:56] supermarket, and there's a ton, uh, is

[23:59] projecting light, but they also went big

[24:02] on uh the destructive element where now,

[24:07] so this was a complaint people had with

[24:09] Gears 5 and that it was a very static

[24:10] looking game. And when you're doing that

[24:12] really finely baked lighting, this is

[24:14] one of the things that can be limiting

[24:16] in that if you move too much in a scene,

[24:19] when using static lighting, it can look

[24:22] a little bit awkward, especially when

[24:23] it's not factored in well into the bake

[24:25] cuz you have to do like a dynamic

[24:27] solution with the baked lighting.

[24:29] >> Here, it's all unified. But they showed

[24:31] things like granular tile breakage where

[24:34] Marcus sort of shoots the wall and you

[24:36] see all the little individual tiles

[24:38] crack and break off. I won't say it's

[24:40] necessarily a brand new thing. We've

[24:42] seen stuff like this, but it seems like

[24:44] the level of detail around it is

[24:47] improved. Uh they also fired bullets

[24:50] into the freezer cage, which uh so it

[24:55] shows the glass shattering and they say

[24:57] they're like they're actually ray

[24:58] tracing the individual glass fragments

[25:01] as it falls down into the scene. The

[25:03] only thing I will say that's a little

[25:04] bit weird about that is that there's

[25:06] glass on both sides of those uh freezer

[25:08] cases and yet the bullet only penetrates

[25:11] the first the first pane of glass. It

[25:14] doesn't go through to the second pane.

[25:16] >> A little bit weird. I don't know. Maybe

[25:18] they'll fix that. Um but it it the

[25:20] actual effect of the primary glass that

[25:23] breaks is very very cool. So um but

[25:26] yeah, I mean what what else what else

[25:28] caught your eye here, Oliver?

[25:30] Oh, I was just super impressed with the

[25:33] Megalytes presentation. I was super

[25:34] impressed. Like there's one shot where

[25:37] they're showing like this wall of CRTs

[25:40] >> that are casting like these super soft

[25:42] shadows, like these beautiful area

[25:44] lights that are nice diffused, very

[25:47] good-looking, colored in interesting

[25:49] ways. Um, and they're casting very soft

[25:52] shadows off of adjacent objects. And I

[25:54] think that just looks awesome. There's

[25:55] also a shot where they show off the fact

[25:57] that when you shoot your gun, you get

[26:00] these beautiful muzzle flash shadows.

[26:02] This light and this muzzle flash that

[26:04] we've not seen the likes of since

[26:05] Killzone 2, right? Very, very cool

[26:08] technique there.

[26:10] >> We actually uh what that reminds me,

[26:12] they were actually in a HalfLife Alex in

[26:14] VR,

[26:15] >> which is super immersive, right? You

[26:17] actually got the full muzzle flashes

[26:18] from every shot. But you're right, it's

[26:20] not a super common thing, unfortunately.

[26:22] >> Not common at all. Not common at all.

[26:24] and they are using a hardware lumen. Um,

[26:26] but it's interesting. There are some

[26:28] moments where like on a road for

[26:32] instance, we're clearly seeing when the

[26:34] camera is moving and when the edge of

[26:36] that camera would normally show some

[26:38] kind of occlusion issue. We're not

[26:39] really seeing that. And I think that's

[26:41] probably because either the screen space

[26:43] information is not being used in that

[26:44] instance or because there's a much

[26:46] closer fidelity between the screen

[26:48] information that's in screen space and

[26:49] the information that's actually in the

[26:51] BBH. So, I think that's a very positive

[26:53] sign. But in other instances, I think on

[26:56] transparencies during game play on like

[26:59] window panes and things like that, I

[27:01] think we're more obviously seeing

[27:04] something that looks to me like it's

[27:06] primarily um relying on set screen space

[27:08] information still. So, we're seeing a

[27:10] little bit like for instance in that

[27:12] freezer cage section when Marcus is

[27:14] walking through there, we're seeing kind

[27:16] of like not like kind of correctish

[27:19] looking but clearly showing some obvious

[27:21] occlusion issues, reflections in that

[27:23] instance. So, um I do wonder if maybe

[27:26] that's a little more selectively applied

[27:28] there. Um this also is a 60 fps trailer

[27:31] and it does seem to be running at 60 fps

[27:33] largely. some dips in the mix and then

[27:35] that um the cinematic sequence towards

[27:37] the end is running at kind of 30 fps

[27:41] with some dips roughly in that vicinity.

[27:44] So it's not 100% like lock 60 perfect

[27:47] and also there like some minor image

[27:49] quality faults that you could have but

[27:50] by and large like this is an extremely

[27:52] impressive demo to be running at 60 fps

[27:54] on a console. Good enough image quality,

[27:58] megalytes, super interesting stuff. Um,

[28:01] but yeah, this is just an awesome

[28:03] trailer and I can't wait to see the

[28:04] final game.

[28:06] >> Yeah, and uh I agree actually. Uh, when

[28:08] you were talking about the CRTs, it did

[28:10] occur to me. I think it's funny how the

[28:12] CRTs in this world are essentially like

[28:14] 70s era designs, like the big wood grain

[28:17] boxes with the giant knobs on the side.

[28:19] Like that is very 70s. I wonder how they

[28:23] went with that. It's very, very

[28:24] interesting choice they made

[28:25] aesthetically. Uh, but you mentioned at

[28:29] the end there that that final cut scene.

[28:31] And Tom, this is kind of an interesting

[28:32] topic I've been thinking about lately is

[28:34] cutscenes and frame rates. I think in

[28:38] some ways I actually like how cut scenes

[28:41] look at 30 fps with good motion blur. I

[28:44] know. I know. I it it sounds insane and

[28:46] I don't always love it,

[28:48] >> but I was playing a game recently and

[28:50] we'll have a video up for that next week

[28:52] where I realized like man like with the

[28:54] motion blur shutter speed dialed in

[28:56] >> and just the way everything moves like

[28:57] it just feels really good at 30 and

[29:00] since you're not playing the game there,

[29:02] I don't think it's a big problem. But I

[29:05] kind of want to What do you think about

[29:06] that? like as some we've been covering

[29:08] this stuff for so long and it kind of

[29:10] comes and goes, but what do you think?

[29:14] >> Uh 30 fps for cut scenes, 60 for

[29:17] gameplay. That switch

[29:19] >> Yeah, it's an odd one. It's uh it can be

[29:23] jarring, I suppose, is the main

[29:24] criticism you might have,

[29:26] >> right? No one likes that constant

[29:28] switch, but there's something about it,

[29:31] right? The the reason we've stuck to 24

[29:33] fps in film for so long, the reason we

[29:36] almost reject the move to 48 for some

[29:40] films, I think Avatar did that. The

[29:41] Hobbit did it. Um, but yeah, in the

[29:44] world of film, we almost reject it

[29:46] because of the soap opera effect. Uh,

[29:48] that feeling it's too smooth and our

[29:50] brain, we always prefer to have uh, you

[29:53] know, that that slower update so our

[29:56] brain can fill in the gaps. And that

[29:58] might apply to games as well. Cut

[30:00] scenes. Um, you know, for a more

[30:03] cinematic effect to really hammer home

[30:04] that this is a big moment. That is a

[30:07] cool psychological trick to use as well

[30:09] as a technical limitation. Say if they

[30:10] want to add more to a cutscene in terms

[30:13] of the render budget, you've got, you

[30:15] know, they can whack up the the settings

[30:17] to a higher degree than was otherwise

[30:20] possible. And I love that actually in um

[30:23] in certain games in actual I know this

[30:26] is sacrilege coming from Digital

[30:27] Foundry, but in some games growing up

[30:30] with um like PS2, Dreamcast, you know, a

[30:34] lot of them had poor sub 30 frame rates

[30:36] and I almost loved cherished it for that

[30:39] because I knew that if it was pushing

[30:40] the frame rate that hard, I must be some

[30:43] seeing something that's completely like

[30:45] I've never seen before like in terms of

[30:47] the tech like you know, Killzone 2. uh

[30:50] was one of the big ones. Like I knew

[30:52] that the lighting in that was just

[30:53] incredible and going to some multiplayer

[30:56] maps cuz I played the online mode quite

[30:59] a bit. I knew I was seeing something

[31:01] that I shouldn't be seeing and that the

[31:03] console just couldn't handle. That is

[31:05] cool. Uh but yeah, to go back to Gears

[31:07] of War, um it's a great demo. Uh, I mean

[31:10] it's uh it goes back to the tradition I

[31:14] think Epic have always had of using

[31:16] Gears of War to showcase their latest

[31:18] tech. And one of the happiest, most

[31:20] gratifying parts of that was them saying

[31:21] they've thrown away all the well they've

[31:24] started from scratch in terms of

[31:25] building this game up to represent the

[31:28] latest uh technology that um Unreal

[31:30] Engine 5.8 or 6 5.8 I believe has. So

[31:36] yeah, I'm really glad that we're seeing

[31:38] mega lights with that fixed ceiling uh

[31:40] in terms of performance cost on the GPU.

[31:42] We're seeing the uh order independent

[31:45] transparencies on the the glass there

[31:47] going through from one pane to the next

[31:50] even without the bullet physics

[31:51] penetrating both. They might fix it. Uh

[31:54] yeah, just it's every aspect of this was

[31:57] screaming. This is our big showcase.

[32:00] Fortnite is the the the clearly the

[32:03] headline act for Epic these days, but we

[32:05] haven't forgotten Gears of War and what

[32:07] it means in terms of our legacy uh and

[32:10] in terms of showing what this technology

[32:11] is capable of. So, yeah, great showcase.

[32:14] And now I I really can't wait to play

[32:16] it. Like it feels like a proper uh you

[32:19] know um continuation of that of that

[32:22] series. So yeah, very excited.

[32:24] >> All right, so that's Gears of War Eday.

[32:28] There's e-holes. That's all you need to

[32:29] know. Looks good. But uh we got one more

[32:34] topic to mention on Unreal and then

[32:36] we're moving on. So Epic also talked

[32:39] about Unreal Engine 6. And I don't want

[32:41] to get too in-depth here because there's

[32:43] still a lot we don't know and it's still

[32:45] a long ways off, but it did open an

[32:47] interesting can of worms. And I've been

[32:49] sort of monitoring uh chatter on this

[32:52] and spoke to some developers as well

[32:54] kind of off the record about this kind

[32:56] of stuff. And essentially one of the

[32:58] changes they're making uh in favor of

[33:01] this new language they call verse is

[33:03] there they want to eventually phase out

[33:05] blueprints which is a node graph system

[33:09] uh visual scripting that they Epic

[33:11] itself sort of pioneered. Uh visual

[33:14] scripting and node graphs have become

[33:16] very common in many other engines as

[33:18] well. Uh for instance decim relies

[33:21] heavily on it. the Horizon games, all

[33:23] the questing and logic and stuff, a lot

[33:25] of that stuff did use a node graph

[33:28] system as well. I don't know what

[33:30] they're currently doing, but that's what

[33:31] they did use to make that. Um, and the

[33:35] feeling I've got is that there's like an

[33:37] interesting war between people on this.

[33:40] People get very upset very quickly.

[33:43] You've got on one hand uh the old heads,

[33:46] and I absolutely get this that they

[33:49] don't want to use a node graph system.

[33:51] don't like this especially when the

[33:53] project becomes large is and I think at

[33:55] AAA scale this becomes a huge problem

[33:57] because the messiness of it uh

[33:59] essentially you've got just like a web

[34:01] of like little boxes and lines

[34:03] everywhere linking all these different

[34:05] variables together to create the results

[34:07] and that can indeed be very difficult to

[34:09] parse. Uh, I think it can be useful and

[34:12] good, but it's also something that's

[34:14] difficult to scale at a large size. And

[34:18] a lot so a lot of developers are like,

[34:20] "Yeah, I don't like them. I never used

[34:21] them. I'm glad that they're gone." Um,

[34:24] but there's actually a lot of studios

[34:26] and smaller teams as well that rely

[34:28] heavily on this stuff uh, and have built

[34:31] a lot of their games around it. And

[34:33] yeah, it is a lot of indie stuff and

[34:36] maybe double A stuff like obviously the

[34:39] one of the more famous examples is

[34:41] Expedition 33 which leaned super heavily

[34:43] on this and those developers are pretty

[34:47] upset by this stuff the the removal of

[34:50] this because they've spent years sort of

[34:52] learning it under the feeling that this

[34:54] is one of the big features Epic was

[34:56] supporting and now they just essentially

[34:57] want to pull the rug out and say no this

[35:00] is going to be depreciated

[35:02] And I, you know, tech needs to move on.

[35:06] But the thing is is like if they

[35:09] introduced blueprints and said, "Oh, you

[35:12] can't write, you know, CC code anymore.

[35:14] You have to use this." There would be a

[35:16] gigantic uproar for good reason. So this

[35:18] is essentially like taking away options

[35:20] whether you use it or not. Some people

[35:22] did. And those people are going to be

[35:24] hit by this. And as an amateur myself on

[35:28] that, I liked using the node graphs.

[35:31] I've used them a lot actually,

[35:32] especially for like building materials

[35:35] and like shaders and stuff in Unreal.

[35:38] It's a really fun thing that you can do

[35:40] and it's great if you're just like like

[35:43] I'm not making games in Unreal. Uh but I

[35:46] do like to make things diaramas and and

[35:49] other stuff that's useful and that's a

[35:52] real nice way to do it. Um so I don't

[35:56] know what I want not important. And

[35:57] that's not what I'm not the customer for

[35:59] Epic, but I do feel a lot of these

[36:02] smaller developers uh are being left out

[36:04] on this. And there is some speculation

[36:06] that this is being done in favor of

[36:09] pushing towards AI and vibe coding,

[36:12] which again, I'm going to I don't want

[36:14] to get into that here cuz it's that

[36:16] opens a whole can of worms. But I am

[36:17] curious if you guys uh kept up with any

[36:21] of this dialogue or what are your

[36:22] thoughts on this? I don't know, Oliver.

[36:26] Yeah, I mean, um, it does seem like they

[36:30] are removing blueprints. I mean, their

[36:31] language is kind of ky on this. They're

[36:33] basically saying, "Well, it's going to

[36:34] be deprecated and we're not going to be

[36:36] shipping new features at some point and

[36:38] then we're going to be moving away from

[36:40] it and removing it entirely at some

[36:42] point." That's basically what they've

[36:43] said. Um, this is like a pretty far out

[36:47] change in terms of like if we're talking

[36:48] about deprecation, no new features as of

[36:51] 6.0. 6.0 know is some you know I think

[36:55] we're talking about late 2027 for early

[36:57] access and sometime thereafter for a

[36:59] full release quite a bit uh thereafter

[37:01] for a full release the interesting thing

[37:04] about this to me is that uh they're not

[37:06] actually shipping any UE5 updates

[37:09] apparently not not major UE5 updates at

[37:11] least after 5.8 this is the end of the

[37:14] road as far as we're aware until 6.0

[37:17] until the early access release of 6.0 I

[37:19] know which is quite some time away.

[37:20] That's a pretty long time between UE5

[37:23] version updates. Um but yeah, in terms

[37:25] of the removal of blueprints, I mean

[37:27] there, you know, I'm sure there are a

[37:28] lot of elements here. I think that

[37:30] blueprints are a great technique to

[37:32] experiment uh and work on iterate on

[37:36] ideas here, but actually shipping

[37:38] blueprints in a major way. Like I'm kind

[37:40] of shocked that Expedition 33 runs as

[37:42] well as it does with all those

[37:45] blueprints in the mix. Maybe it's

[37:46] because it's such a limited title in

[37:48] terms of what it's trying to do in terms

[37:49] of the environments, in terms of the

[37:50] complexity of like um you know the open

[37:53] world systems, things like that. But

[37:55] it's kind of shocking to me that games

[37:57] are actually shipping blueprints as much

[37:59] as they are. And perhaps in the name of

[38:02] having an ultimately more extensible and

[38:05] performant framework for iterating on,

[38:07] you know, your gameplay ideas or

[38:08] whatever, perhaps verse is a better

[38:11] option. And yeah, there are some

[38:12] integrations there that do make it

[38:14] possibly more compelling with things

[38:16] like LMS and things like that if that's

[38:18] your want. But I think this is like

[38:20] ultimately, you know, there's a lot of

[38:22] technical debt in maintaining multiple

[38:24] systems like this. So I can understand.

[38:26] >> Sure. Sure. shifting over. But it is

[38:28] unfortunate because like yeah, you do

[38:30] have this example of this game and I'm

[38:32] sure many many other titles like it

[38:34] where you do get a lot of mileage

[38:35] instead of being able to iterate and

[38:36] ship really quickly on this kind of node

[38:38] graph based system and uh that is

[38:40] presumably being removed and it does not

[38:43] seem like there's necessarily going to

[38:45] be an alternative that's as convenient.

[38:48] I guess they're going to have to pull a

[38:49] um uh another realms and stick with an

[38:52] old engine for a long time.

[38:56] was exactly where I was going to go with

[38:58] that actually. The, you know, we've seen

[39:00] a lot of developers like dig their heels

[39:02] in, right? Yep.

[39:03] >> With a previous iteration, uh, famously

[39:06] Square Enix, stuck stuck with Unreal

[39:09] Engine 4, uh, their own kind of version

[39:11] of it that they've modified. So, it's

[39:14] not unheard of. And I I think if it's a

[39:16] preference for some, you know, it's free

[39:19] to try and developers will weigh up the

[39:21] pros and cons of moving to a UE6. And if

[39:24] they really do think it's better for

[39:25] their workflow, then you know they can

[39:27] stick to 5.8 and that's uh keeping a lot

[39:30] of features in place. What might scupper

[39:32] them a bit is when they get to uh when

[39:35] Epic starts revealing more features on

[39:37] top of the 6.0

[39:40] uh path of uh Unreal Engine and then at

[39:43] that point, you know, you've got to

[39:45] adjust or be left behind. Uh which is,

[39:49] >> you know,

[39:50] >> yeah, a decision for them to make. To be

[39:52] clear, I do think that in 6.0,

[39:54] your old good node graph blueprint

[39:57] system, that's still supported, but it's

[39:59] kind of more of an open question. They

[40:00] did talk about support for early

[40:02] versions of UE6, but it's not clear like

[40:04] at what point do they remove it after

[40:06] that point. They're a little bit less

[40:07] clear. And they do say it will be

[40:08] removed at some point. So, if you're

[40:10] just shipping instance 6.0, maybe you

[40:12] can still use blueprints just fine,

[40:14] >> but you know, 6.4

[40:16] maybe not, right?

[40:18] >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And this is the

[40:21] problem with working with an engine you

[40:23] have no control over. Uh Capcom would

[40:26] have no such problem. Uh Guerilla Games,

[40:29] you know, they can uh chart their own

[40:32] destiny.

[40:33] >> Indeed. Indeed. And uh you know, it is

[40:36] interesting to see the types of moves

[40:39] Epic's trying to make versus um some of

[40:43] the stuff happening on internal engines.

[40:45] I It's It's It's a complicated, crazy

[40:48] world. And um yeah, I mean I guess we'll

[40:51] we'll just continue to track what's

[40:53] happening. I'm very curious to see where

[40:55] all of this goes and how developers

[40:57] around the world feel about these

[40:59] changes. So yeah, more soon, I guess.

[41:03] But for now, let's move on to a a very

[41:07] expensive topic.

[41:09] So this is something that Will Jud

[41:11] flagged on the site, and I had to check

[41:14] it out with my own eyes to see it. And I

[41:16] get it, the cost of storage, it's going

[41:18] way up. It's pretty crazy at this point,

[41:21] but SanDisk is offering these new

[41:24] PlayStation 5 officially licensed SSDs.

[41:28] So, that means they have a little

[41:29] PlayStation logo on them. Just so you

[41:31] know, the cost of the 1 TBTE model is

[41:34] already, you know, 380 bucks. Uh, that's

[41:37] pretty high. 760 for the two TBTE. You

[41:40] know, you see that you're like, that's

[41:42] expensive, but it's not like out of

[41:45] affordability. And then there's this 4

[41:47] TBTE model for 1,500. But the one that

[41:50] has us all like kind of staring in awe

[41:52] is the $3,000 8 TBTE model. And Oliver,

[41:57] why don't you tell us all about how

[41:58] you're going to be buying this $3,000 uh

[42:01] 8 TBTE model? No, I'm just kidding. What

[42:04] would you do? Would you spend three

[42:05] grand on this model or would you just

[42:07] buy multiple PS5 Pros instead and just

[42:09] swap them around?

[42:11] >> That Hey, that's a that's a heck of a

[42:13] concept there, John. Uh, I I would take

[42:16] option C, which is I would maybe buy a

[42:20] different 8 TBTE drive because I'm kind

[42:22] of shocked by these prices, honestly,

[42:25] because like, you know, not that long

[42:27] ago in Canada at least, it was possible

[42:30] to get an 8 TB drive for like $800 or

[42:32] so, $900 maybe.

[42:34] >> Um, and even now, I can go on Amazon.ca

[42:37] CA right now and buy an 8 TB SSD for

[42:40] like 1,700 or $1,800 Canadian dollars,

[42:43] >> which would be equivalent to like I

[42:44] think 1,400 or 1300 American. Um, when

[42:47] you factor in the exchange rate, this is

[42:49] more than twice as expensive as that is.

[42:51] And not only is this more than twice as

[42:54] expensive as the going rate for 8 TB

[42:56] SSDs right now, but in the future it

[42:59] might be even higher because the $3,000

[43:01] slightly under $3,000 price tag is

[43:03] discounted from $3700,

[43:07] which is their apparently normal

[43:08] recommended retail sale price for these

[43:11] devices. So, man, that is a really

[43:15] expensive product. Um, I can understand

[43:18] paying a bit of a premium for like a

[43:19] licensed PS6 PS5 drive, but in this

[43:24] case, there's nothing that special that

[43:25] you need to use for a PS5 drive. All you

[43:28] need is a is an um a PC uh Gen 4 SSD

[43:34] with a minimum speed at 5500 megabits

[43:37] megabytes per second, although as we've

[43:39] seen from Rich's testing, that can be

[43:41] considerably below that without not

[43:42] actually having any performance penalty.

[43:44] And ideally a heat sink, although I'm

[43:46] not even sure a heat sink is necessary.

[43:48] People have done various tests on it. I

[43:50] think a heat sink is more just like

[43:51] insurance bit of safety, you know, for

[43:54] like a really more or less really

[43:55] extended workload. Maybe you'd see some

[43:57] performance degradation on on devices

[43:59] because there's not enough air flow or

[44:00] something going to the uh going to the

[44:02] SSD, but in general, it should not be

[44:04] that important. Um, and yeah, the specs

[44:06] drives are really good, but again, you

[44:07] don't need more than about 55 100

[44:11] megabytes per second uh speeds. And this

[44:14] goes up to 7200 megabytes per second

[44:16] speeds, but even still, I see 7200

[44:18] megabytes per second drives for sale for

[44:21] totally reasonable prices relative to

[44:23] this. That's not a good excuse either.

[44:25] Um, I do wonder if they're just pricing

[44:27] this in with, god forbid, the

[44:30] expectation of future price rises in

[44:32] terms of the components, the market

[44:33] price of those components. Uh, that

[44:35] might not be too great here. Um, but I

[44:39] hope this doesn't pretend really

[44:42] negative things for the storage market.

[44:43] I hope this is just one uh retailer, one

[44:47] uh manufacturer trying to mark things up

[44:49] a little bit, make a bit of margin, lean

[44:52] into a PlayStation 5 uh branding

[44:55] opportunity there and uh kind of gouge

[44:58] people a little bit because if this

[45:00] indicates the future direction of where

[45:02] SSD prices are headed in the next few

[45:04] months, that's like extremely negative.

[45:06] We're talking about multiple multiples

[45:09] above where SSD prices were in the

[45:12] before times, which is not that long

[45:14] ago. You know, we're talking about 6

[45:16] months ago, 9 months ago, SSD prices

[45:18] were pretty good uh relative to where

[45:20] they are now. And now they're like a lot

[45:23] higher. And it's uh really devastating.

[45:25] But like I think that this is hopefully

[45:28] not indicative of where things will be.

[45:31] And I don't think it's indicative of

[45:33] where things are right now.

[45:36] Okay, very interesting. Tom, anything to

[45:38] add

[45:40] >> only that I hope this is just a a crash

[45:44] like a phase crash already restore

[45:46] balance restore but you know a temporary

[45:49] one in terms of the

[45:50] >> the longevity of it. Um, it does seem

[45:53] quite quite aggressive though and I

[45:56] don't think I've seen anything in my,

[45:58] you know, in my life uh in this

[46:00] industry. I like it, you know, it's it's

[46:03] incredible. Three grand for an SSD, but

[46:05] a lot of it, as Oliver is saying, does

[46:07] seem to be related to that PlayStation

[46:10] branding. And, uh, you can do much

[46:13] better by looking for just regular

[46:15] Samsung branded ones. And, you know,

[46:18] that's all you need, SanDisk branded

[46:19] ones. But, uh, yeah. Uh probably

[46:22] probably go with option B though. Uh if

[46:25] that was it, get two three PS5 Pros,

[46:28] keep one, toss the other Pros away. Just

[46:30] keep the the MVMES. Just take the MVMEs

[46:33] out of those, but toss the other two

[46:34] Pros and uh yeah, swap them around.

[46:38] If only I had that much money.

[46:41] >> All All right, then. So that's that's

[46:43] not great news, but our next topic, I

[46:46] guess it could be considered some good

[46:47] news. So, last night it was confirmed

[46:50] that out of nowhere, Iron Galaxy is

[46:54] porting Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and 2

[46:57] to PlayStation 5. Uh, and it seems to be

[47:01] the full suite. All the modes,

[47:03] everything seems to be in there. And

[47:07] Oliver, I don't know. I mean, these

[47:09] these were big games. It almost feels

[47:12] like they're pulling the emergency rip

[47:14] cord here. like, oh, we got to go back

[47:16] to, you know, the games that were super

[47:18] popular. This is the Treyarch stuff.

[47:20] These first two Black Ops games were

[47:22] really wellreceived. I think Black Ops 2

[47:23] was a launch title for the Wii U even,

[47:25] which we talked about recently.

[47:27] >> Um, but it's interesting because they

[47:30] only announced it's coming to

[47:31] PlayStation. And I guess when you think

[47:33] about it, the reason would come down to

[47:35] backwards compatibility, right? On Xbox,

[47:39] these games work natively. Well, not

[47:41] natively. these games work via, you

[47:44] know, the backwards compatibility

[47:45] program. So, I don't know. I was kind of

[47:49] reminded of that Red Dead Redemption

[47:51] situation when that first happened where

[47:53] the developer was like, "Hey, you

[47:55] already got it on backwards

[47:56] compatibility, so why bring it?" And

[47:58] then the other users get a direct port.

[48:00] But there's a lot of benefits to having

[48:02] an actual port. So, I don't know. What

[48:03] do you make of this situation knowing

[48:05] this?

[48:07] >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a a concerning

[48:10] situation because I've gone back and I I

[48:12] booted up Black Ops 2 on my Xbox Series

[48:15] X prior to this call and it is still,

[48:18] you know, like a 600p title.

[48:21] Yes, it's not an Xenhanced title. And

[48:24] when you look at I mean the situation

[48:26] with like Red Dead Redemption 2 or

[48:28] rather Red Dead Redemption one

[48:30] chronologically Red Dead Redemption 2 I

[48:32] suppose but you know the game itself Red

[48:33] Dead Redemption one um that game was at

[48:36] least 4K on Series X and Xbox One X. So

[48:40] you look at that title at least relative

[48:42] to the initial version of Red Dead

[48:44] Redemption for PlayStation that was

[48:46] quite competitive with how the game ran

[48:48] on PS5 for the most part. part. I mean,

[48:50] it did not have FSR upscaling. Did not

[48:53] look quite as nice. Um, or I guess it

[48:55] wasn't FSR upscaling in that case. It

[48:56] was FSR native AA. It didn't look quite

[48:59] as nice in terms of aliasing

[49:00] presentation, but broadly speaking, you

[49:02] know, still 4K visuals, still 30 fps.

[49:05] Later, they upgraded the PlayStation 5

[49:07] version to um 60 fps, which did increase

[49:10] that golf a little bit more. And of

[49:12] course, when they released the game

[49:14] again with that new port for all current

[49:17] generation platforms, including Switch

[49:19] 2, including Series X, that situation

[49:21] was rectified. But in this case, it does

[49:24] seem like a bit of a raw deal and just

[49:26] like a really a bit of a misplaced

[49:28] priority to not ship an Xbox version as

[49:30] well because I mean, unless the

[49:32] PlayStation version is literally just

[49:34] like the exact same, you know, I think

[49:37] like sub 600p res like miserable

[49:40] resolution on PlayStation. I think it

[49:42] was like 880 by 720 or something.

[49:44] Something really atrocious that right.

[49:46] It was it was not very good in those

[49:48] titles back in the day. And I would

[49:50] certainly hope they would not just try

[49:52] to replicate that on hardware as

[49:53] powerful as a PlayStation 5. I don't

[49:55] think that's necessary. PlayStation 5

[49:56] Pro, god forbid. Um, so I'd hope that

[50:00] they would actually ship this version of

[50:02] the game across all platforms, but it

[50:03] remains to be seen exactly what they're

[50:04] going to do with this game. It is a very

[50:06] old title. I don't expect any

[50:08] significant graphical enhancements

[50:10] beyond resolution and possibly frame

[50:11] rate, but um yeah, I I really think they

[50:15] need to do the do the full monty here

[50:17] and ship it on everything. I think they

[50:18] need this on why isn't this on Switch 2?

[50:21] You know, that's another question. Like

[50:22] it's a subtitle thing. What's going on

[50:24] here? Because

[50:25] >> exactly

[50:25] >> Switch 2 should be capable of handling

[50:27] this game at, you know,

[50:29] >> 60 fps, high resolutions. Like there

[50:31] should be no impediment to shipping this

[50:33] game across

[50:34] >> anything that can hold the charge at

[50:36] this point because the game is so old.

[50:38] So why aren't they doing it? I just

[50:40] don't know.

[50:42] >> Tom, what do you think?

[50:44] >> Yeah, it is odd because they only

[50:46] announced this as a a small tweet and

[50:48] then a follow-up tweet to say, you know,

[50:51] all modes are included. Zombies,

[50:53] multiplayer, campaign, so you're getting

[50:56] everything. It's the comprehensive

[50:57] package on both games. Yet I if this was

[51:00] their moment to really drive home the

[51:03] value of this port, they would have

[51:05] announced those things. Switch 2, you

[51:06] know, they would have announced um you

[51:09] know, some sort of resolution upgrade,

[51:10] you know, at least, you know, it was

[51:12] such a brief line that, you know,

[51:15] wouldn't it wouldn't have hurt to at

[51:17] least mention some of the uh

[51:19] improvements. I find it impossible to

[51:21] imagine if you're starting from uh you

[51:23] know, a fresh port, I guess. Yeah. So,

[51:27] it it's very surprisingly vague is what

[51:29] I'd say and that uh they didn't really

[51:32] go into any details, but if they've

[51:34] revved up Iron Galaxy to

[51:37] um be involved with that that game again

[51:41] and got them fired up to be make, you

[51:43] know, engaging with it. It wouldn't be

[51:45] surprising uh to me if they did have

[51:47] Switch 2 sort of being prepped for

[51:50] something down the line, you know, in

[51:51] terms of the return on investment to get

[51:53] a whole developer working on this stuff.

[51:56] But uh yeah,

[51:57] >> indeed indeed.

[51:58] >> Who knows? Guess

[51:59] >> we'll find out. Might check this out

[52:01] when it releases, though. I'll be

[52:03] curious to see like what they actually

[52:04] do to it. If it's just a resolution

[52:06] boost or if they actually do some kind

[52:08] of additional enhancements. Guess we'll

[52:10] find out soon. All right, though. Couple

[52:13] more topics to cover and then we're

[52:16] done. So, this next topic actually

[52:19] brings us to something that I guess has

[52:22] sort of fallen out of fashion and the

[52:25] never was really mainstream to begin

[52:26] with, but it's VR talk. But, I've been

[52:29] kind of wondering, I guess, like what's

[52:31] going on in the VR space, especially the

[52:34] high-end VR space. So, I was offered an

[52:37] opportunity to toy around with a new

[52:40] unit from Pimax, relatively new. It's

[52:43] their Dream Air headset. This is a very

[52:46] expensive headset. It's like two grand

[52:48] uh and a little more if you want the

[52:50] inside out version with the tracking

[52:52] controllers, but you know, this is still

[52:56] very popular in the PC VR space, the

[53:00] sort of high-end ultra high resolution

[53:02] VR headsets, uh designed specifically

[53:04] for things like racing, anything with a

[53:08] cockpit, stuff like that. Right. I've

[53:10] been using the Quest 3 headset as my

[53:13] main for a while. I like the wireless

[53:15] features. The pancake lenses are good.

[53:17] Good optics there. Uh but it's obviously

[53:19] held back by the fact that it's using

[53:21] LCD screens with very poor black levels.

[53:25] And you know, the resolution, while

[53:26] still very sharp, it's starting to show

[53:28] its age. So these new this new Dream Air

[53:32] then is designed to sort of compete I

[53:34] guess with what was the big screen VR

[53:36] headsets which is they've essentially

[53:39] created a very tiny ultra thin headset

[53:42] using Sony micro OLED screens um with

[53:47] their own pancake lenses uh but in ultra

[53:51] high resolution so they call it like an

[53:53] 8K headset. So the actual resolution

[53:56] then of the screens, it's about 3840 by

[54:00] 3552 pixels per eye. So if you combine

[54:03] them, then you're looking at essentially

[54:05] 27 million pixels or an 8K resolution.

[54:10] And the reason that's interesting here

[54:12] is that this is the first headset I've

[54:14] ever tested where the the pixel density

[54:18] is now so high that I can no longer

[54:20] perceive pixels at all. It is like I

[54:24] guess the retina display equivalent for

[54:27] a VR headset. And it's my first time

[54:29] experiencing this, right? Cuz up until

[54:30] now, even with fairly high resolution

[54:32] headsets, you could still see the

[54:34] individual pixels, right? It felt like

[54:36] you're looking into a grid of pixels,

[54:38] which is almost like it's it's it

[54:40] improved. It's like the screen door

[54:42] effect that you always heard about where

[54:43] it feels like you've got a layer of

[54:44] pixels on top of what you're looking at.

[54:46] But here the resolution is now so high.

[54:49] The the resolve on detail is so

[54:52] exceptionally sharp that it genuinely

[54:55] feels like you're peering through like

[54:57] more like a camera lens or like an

[54:59] actual lens into the real world. And

[55:02] I've never seen anything like this.

[55:04] Playing a game like Halflife Alex, when

[55:06] you pick up a pistol and you're like

[55:08] examining the markings and the details

[55:10] on the gun or the russles which have all

[55:12] those little chips and everything sort

[55:14] of mounted on your hand there, like it

[55:17] looks like a real object. Like it's hard

[55:21] to explain. I don't know. Can you guys

[55:22] picture what I'm talking about here?

[55:23] Where it's just like the resolution is

[55:25] now so high that it just removes that

[55:27] barrier completely. And when you couple

[55:30] that with like, you know, the fact that

[55:31] these are OLED screens, so the black

[55:34] levels are great. They're super bright,

[55:36] super clear. Uh it just feels like we're

[55:39] reaching like a new level of clarity and

[55:41] realism for VR. That was kind of

[55:43] exciting.

[55:44] >> So, um I don't know. What do you guys

[55:46] think of of this like idea conceptually?

[55:50] >> And you got me excited to try it. And uh

[55:52] it's a fully wired solution as well. So,

[55:54] >> currently, yes.

[55:56] >> Okay. So latency not a problem, right?

[56:00] That's one another one of the barriers I

[56:01] guess for VR.

[56:02] >> I would say wireless VR is pretty lag

[56:04] free. I mean there is some latency but

[56:06] it feels good and I'm I'm happy with

[56:08] wireless VR. Uh but I must admit going

[56:11] back to both wired and then the ultra

[56:13] high-risisk screens. Yeah, it does kind

[56:16] of highlight a difference where it's

[56:18] just it's artifact free, right?

[56:21] >> Yeah. No, it sounds uh appetizing. I

[56:24] tell you what, maybe I'll pop over to

[56:26] your place sometime, give it a try.

[56:29] >> It's It's worth looking at. And again,

[56:30] this is not this is like the opposite of

[56:33] a mass market product, right? This is

[56:35] not for the general audience. This is

[56:37] strictly a high-end VR solution for a

[56:40] very specific audience, but seeing what

[56:44] it's able to deliver and a wider FOV to

[56:47] boot, by the way, so like you actually

[56:49] see more of the image around you. Um,

[56:52] it's super super cool and impressive.

[56:55] And yeah, I think for cockpit based

[56:57] games, that's probably where it really

[56:58] shines based on my experience as well.

[57:00] There is like even at a normal distance

[57:03] when you're sitting like in an F1 car

[57:05] cockpit now, you can look at all the

[57:06] little dials and bits and bobs in the

[57:08] cockpit around you

[57:10] >> and everything is completely legible.

[57:13] >> Uh, it's honestly nuts to see it. So,

[57:17] uh, it also only weighs. It's like 170

[57:20] g.

[57:21] It's this very It's so thin and light

[57:24] that it doesn't have that like normally

[57:26] with a larger headset when you move your

[57:28] head, you feel like this delayed weight

[57:30] of the headset shifting, right? And

[57:32] that's just gone. Like it now feels just

[57:34] like a bulky pair of glasses as opposed

[57:37] to like a giant headset sticking off

[57:40] your face, which again makes like head

[57:42] movement feel a lot better because you

[57:44] no longer feel that additional weight,

[57:46] right?

[57:48] So, what games did you try? You've done

[57:49] Alex, you've done uh F1.

[57:51] >> So, yeah, I did F1 because I had that

[57:53] installed. Um, let me actually bring up

[57:55] the list of stuff that I was playing

[57:57] around with. Of course, I did the

[57:58] HalfLife 2 VR mod. Um, I did Grip Combat

[58:02] Racing, which made me want to throw up

[58:04] because it's like too much.

[58:07] Uh, Alien Rogue Incursion VR. That's

[58:10] actually interesting. When I first

[58:11] loaded that up, I was like, wait, the

[58:13] frame rate's not very good here. Like,

[58:15] what's going on? And it turned out, I

[58:16] guess, with the way Steam VR works and

[58:18] like the automatic scaling, it was

[58:20] trying to render it at like 16,000

[58:22] by7,000 resolution, so 16K. And it

[58:27] worked, but uh it didn't work well. What

[58:30] was interesting though is that because

[58:32] uh it has the um what is it? The time

[58:36] warp stuff, right? Like to sort of

[58:38] interpolate frames when your frame

[58:40] rate's lower on head movement. uh the

[58:42] actual head movement looked completely

[58:44] smooth, but when you would move the 3D

[58:47] objects like your hands in the world, it

[58:49] was extremely choppy because of the

[58:51] super high resolution. So, it's funny to

[58:54] see that work, but yeah, you're not even

[58:56] with the 5090 like 16k super sampling,

[59:00] not super doable. Uh, also Riven.

[59:04] Riven's a good one. I like the VR in

[59:06] Riven. If you guys have checked it out,

[59:07] that remake of the game, it just it's

[59:10] crazy immersive to be wandering around

[59:12] in there and the new contrast and

[59:14] brightness of these screens and clarity.

[59:15] It's like I could only dream of this

[59:17] back in the '9s, being able to

[59:19] essentially peer into this world.

[59:22] So, it's it's cool. I like to see this.

[59:26] I think it's a really neat thing. Um,

[59:29] I'm happy to see VR continue to evolve.

[59:31] I definitely still prefer wireless to

[59:33] wired, but I also understand that you're

[59:36] not going to be able to transmit the

[59:38] kind of data necessarily over wireless

[59:40] at this kind of fidelity right now.

[59:42] Necess

[59:44] doesn't seem that likely because the

[59:46] bandwidth requirements for this is

[59:48] pretty nuts.

[59:50] So um

[59:52] >> that's crazy. What is the interface for

[59:54] that to the PC? Is it a USB high

[59:56] bandwidth USB? Let me talk about this

[59:57] cuz there is a couple little uh

[1:00:00] >> sort of issues and caution flags here.

[1:00:02] First of all, yes, it uses USB cable

[1:00:05] >> and display port together, right?

[1:00:08] >> Uh but when I first installed this, so

[1:00:10] you have to install the PMAX software,

[1:00:13] which is it's improved. I would say it's

[1:00:15] completely fine. It's like the interface

[1:00:17] between the headset and Steam VR.

[1:00:20] Basically, you put the headset on, it

[1:00:21] goes into that software, and you can

[1:00:22] just launch Steam VR from there. It's

[1:00:24] fine. But when I first installed the

[1:00:25] headset, I was not able to get a

[1:00:27] picture. It would not actually power up.

[1:00:29] And it turns out that if your

[1:00:31] motherboard has uh onboard video and you

[1:00:35] do not have that disabled in in the UF

[1:00:37] UEFI, the bias or whatever, it will not

[1:00:40] work. It will not go to the secondary

[1:00:43] graphics card. It will try to use the

[1:00:46] built-on uh built-in video and you won't

[1:00:49] overight

[1:00:50] >> which is super annoying. Uh I searching

[1:00:53] online a lot of users encountered this

[1:00:55] which is how I kind of figured out like

[1:00:56] oh wait that's what's going on here and

[1:00:58] that was what was going on. Once I did

[1:00:59] that it was fine but that did make the

[1:01:02] setup slightly annoying because it it

[1:01:04] didn't really indicate why it wasn't

[1:01:06] working. It just failed the connection

[1:01:09] to display port and yeah so that's a

[1:01:12] little bit of a pain. Uh there's also,

[1:01:15] you know, again, you've got to fiddle

[1:01:16] with the automatic sort of scaling

[1:01:18] features of Steam VR because the

[1:01:21] resolution is so high that by default it

[1:01:24] was often trying to just render stuff at

[1:01:26] like a stupidly high resolution upwards

[1:01:28] of like I said 16K and the performance

[1:01:31] is just not good there. So, uh you've

[1:01:34] got to pay attention to that. But again,

[1:01:36] Steam VR has all these functions within

[1:01:38] it to sort of modify that as you go. So

[1:01:41] you can adjust each game or the overall

[1:01:43] Steam VR experience to whatever

[1:01:45] resolution and performance target you

[1:01:47] desire.

[1:01:49] By the way, headset is 90 Hz native. I

[1:01:52] think you can do 72 Hz as well, but 90

[1:01:54] Hz is the target, which I think is a

[1:01:56] pretty good uh pretty good middle ground

[1:01:59] here. It's it you get very clean motion

[1:02:01] clarity at 90 Hz, but it's not as

[1:02:04] difficult to drive as something like 120

[1:02:07] because yeah, you're you know, you're

[1:02:09] rendering at such high resolutions here.

[1:02:11] Essentially 8K all the time that yeah,

[1:02:14] you need it. So, I don't know. Any other

[1:02:17] questions about this? It was just it was

[1:02:19] just kind of a weird thing and it's fun

[1:02:20] to experiment with.

[1:02:23] >> How was your How was performance

[1:02:24] overall? You're driving it with an RTX

[1:02:26] 5090, am I right? And I I feel like

[1:02:28] >> so that's the that's the other thing.

[1:02:30] >> And that's the thing, Tom. Because it's

[1:02:31] such a high-end product and it's very

[1:02:34] much only targeting that sort of user, I

[1:02:37] suspect anyone that's picking up a

[1:02:38] headset like this would also have a

[1:02:40] high-end GPU, right?

[1:02:43] >> Uh so and technically, I mean, you can

[1:02:45] drive this on a lower power card if you

[1:02:49] are willing to drop the resolution, but

[1:02:50] then you lose obviously the big benefits

[1:02:53] of having such high resolution screens.

[1:02:55] Either way, I just got to say like I

[1:02:57] wanted to mention this because it's it's

[1:03:00] cool to see. The only thing still

[1:03:02] missing in VR is like the peripheral

[1:03:04] vision outside of the sweet spot. It's

[1:03:07] still black, right, naturally. And I was

[1:03:10] thinking about that because of the way

[1:03:11] lens optics works. It's a hard problem

[1:03:13] to solve. But what if they like

[1:03:14] installed some sort of like

[1:03:18] lighting system that would sort of like

[1:03:20] match the color that's being displayed,

[1:03:23] you know what I mean? within the lenses

[1:03:25] themselves somehow as like a just a

[1:03:27] peripheral light like even if it's not

[1:03:30] something you can visually focus on

[1:03:32] >> just some

[1:03:32] >> a bit like those Philips Huegh lights

[1:03:35] behind TVs.

[1:03:35] >> Yeah, I was thinking about that. I'm

[1:03:37] wondering how that would actually work

[1:03:38] if it would look good. Uh just some way

[1:03:40] to sort of fill in that peripheral area

[1:03:42] rather than just being black space cuz I

[1:03:44] mean I'm already used to it. I wear

[1:03:45] glasses, right? So the area outside of

[1:03:47] the sweet spot it's blurriier normally

[1:03:49] as expected. Uh, but there is still

[1:03:52] light and stuff happening around there

[1:03:54] as opposed to just pure black. So, so

[1:03:57] even though the FOV is wider, you still

[1:03:59] have that black border problem, which is

[1:04:01] something that nobody's been able to

[1:04:02] solve yet. Uh, but yeah, that's that's

[1:04:05] pretty much that. So, let's uh

[1:04:08] >> How much?

[1:04:09] >> Very very cool.

[1:04:10] >> Oh, I as I said at the beginning, super

[1:04:13] high-end, dude. I mean, I guess it's

[1:04:14] less less than the Apple Vision Pro was.

[1:04:18] >> Less than an eight terab SSD job.

[1:04:21] Yes. Uh I think there's a model that

[1:04:24] uses the Steam uh lighouses that's like

[1:04:28] 17 or 1800 and then there's like the

[1:04:31] 2200ish

[1:04:33] one for which has the inside out

[1:04:35] tracking the slam version as they call

[1:04:37] it which ships with its own controller.

[1:04:40] So it's basically around two grand for

[1:04:43] this. Um, but yeah, it is a niche

[1:04:47] product, right? And it's selling for

[1:04:50] niche prices, though less niche than

[1:04:51] Apple Vision Pro. And it looks a lot

[1:04:54] better than the Vision Pro. The

[1:04:55] screenwise, I'm saying like the

[1:04:57] difference between the Vision Pro and

[1:04:59] this in terms of clarity, it's light

[1:05:02] years better. I feel like this is the

[1:05:05] type of display Apple would have wanted

[1:05:07] in the Vision Pro, but was not able to

[1:05:09] deliver. uh because it really does

[1:05:11] provide that true like real life clarity

[1:05:15] that I think we've been looking for for

[1:05:16] a long time. So yeah, that's where we're

[1:05:20] at.

[1:05:20] >> Amazing.

[1:05:21] >> Anyway, let's move on to the final topic

[1:05:24] here. So, as we've been doing lately, uh

[1:05:28] we've been using the Digital Foundry

[1:05:30] time machine, the website that Will Jud

[1:05:33] built to look back at things that

[1:05:35] happened on Digital Foundry one year,

[1:05:36] five years, and 10 years ago. Uh, one

[1:05:39] year ago, uh, it looks like I posted the

[1:05:42] review for Death Stranding 2, which was

[1:05:44] cool.

[1:05:46] And Alex posted the the DF Retro EX

[1:05:50] video on Doom 93 up through the Dark

[1:05:52] Ages, which was also cool. Uh, lot of

[1:05:56] stuff happening there. Oliver, you did a

[1:05:59] video, it looks like, on Switch 2

[1:06:02] improvements that were happening at the

[1:06:04] time, such as the Pokemon Scarlet and

[1:06:07] Violent improvements, cuz we were still

[1:06:09] in the Switch 2 era, right? We also

[1:06:11] looked at Mind's Eye last year. My

[1:06:13] goodness.

[1:06:14] >> Oh, yeah. I took that one on. That was

[1:06:16] uh good fun.

[1:06:17] >> The big one for me though is five years

[1:06:19] ago, we released part one of the DF

[1:06:22] Retro episode I did on the launch of

[1:06:24] PlayStation 1, which I look back on

[1:06:26] fondly. It was one of my favorite

[1:06:28] episodes to ever work on. Uh it was Audi

[1:06:31] and I worked hard on that. We spent like

[1:06:33] a full month just like crazy long hours

[1:06:36] putting that like multi-hour thing

[1:06:37] together. But it was just a great time

[1:06:40] revisiting all those different games and

[1:06:42] looking at them in detail. And the

[1:06:44] Japanese launch itself was a lot of fun

[1:06:46] to cover because there's titles in there

[1:06:49] that never came out anywhere else. And

[1:06:51] from a modern perspective,

[1:06:53] very strange or interesting. Like uh

[1:06:57] there was Tama, which is the like the

[1:07:00] mysterious tale of like the little ball.

[1:07:02] It's like a one of those maze games

[1:07:04] where you roll the maze around. You have

[1:07:05] to roll the ball through it. Like that

[1:07:07] was actually a launch title.

[1:07:10] >> Oh my gosh. I don't know. Did Did any of

[1:07:12] you guys ever get a chance to watch that

[1:07:14] episode? I know it was long.

[1:07:16] >> I sure did. I lapped it up. I'm a huge

[1:07:19] Well, that's were you know a huge part

[1:07:20] of my teenage years growing up with the

[1:07:22] original PlayStation and and uh you

[1:07:26] provided an amazing insight into the

[1:07:29] culture and the the atmosphere that

[1:07:32] surrounded uh gaming at that time. you

[1:07:35] know, the wider the wider sense of where

[1:07:37] people were in terms of moving from Sega

[1:07:39] or Nintendo and seeing this newcomer

[1:07:41] enter the space and, you know, the the

[1:07:46] fact that Sony managed to drum up so

[1:07:48] much excitement amongst developers

[1:07:50] through their music roots, like their

[1:07:51] music production roots to get uh some

[1:07:55] amazing ideas, amazing creatives working

[1:07:57] on launch titles. Uh yeah, which I think

[1:08:00] really just defined where PlayStation

[1:08:03] would go on. Um, yeah. So, it's a

[1:08:06] incredible video. I'm now got the uh the

[1:08:08] full marathon up on my browser here.

[1:08:11] It's about 2 hours 46 minutes.

[1:08:13] >> Oh, yes.

[1:08:14] >> of pure PlayStation one goodness.

[1:08:17] >> Indeed.

[1:08:19] >> Must see. Must see if you've not seen it

[1:08:21] already.

[1:08:21] >> Yeah. Yeah, it was like a bunch of

[1:08:22] little mini DFRs in there since we

[1:08:24] looked at every game and there was lots

[1:08:26] of comparisons with them like the four

[1:08:29] fiveway NBA Jam comparison, Rayman,

[1:08:32] stuff like that's in there. All kinds of

[1:08:34] good stuff. So, if you haven't seen it,

[1:08:36] do check it out. Uh although I have to

[1:08:40] look back 10 years ago, Tom, we we were

[1:08:44] cranking stuff out. Uh, it looks like

[1:08:47] you did a video on Breath of the Wild

[1:08:49] for the Wii U, which is fun.

[1:08:53] >> Yep. Yep. That was uh Wii U. Switch

[1:08:57] wasn't out by that point, was it? It was

[1:08:59] the next year that Switch came out. Just

[1:09:01] had the Wii U version.

[1:09:03] Yeah. What a time. And we were all We

[1:09:05] knew something was coming. We knew

[1:09:07] something was coming uh up with

[1:09:08] Nintendo's next machine,

[1:09:10] >> right? No, you're right. I'm looking at

[1:09:11] it now. This is a video that you and I

[1:09:14] both talked about. We were both in this

[1:09:16] video and it was discussing the early

[1:09:18] sort of gameplay footage out of the Wii

[1:09:20] U version. I was at that E3 and they

[1:09:23] obviously the Switch wasn't announced

[1:09:24] yet. So, uh, all the demo stations,

[1:09:27] everything was done on the Wii U. And I

[1:09:30] still think the game really felt like it

[1:09:32] was crafted for the Wii U and like the

[1:09:34] whole like Shikica slate thing like

[1:09:36] what? It's a it's a Wii U gamepad. Come

[1:09:38] on now.

[1:09:40] >> So,

[1:09:41] >> uh, it just

[1:09:42] >> it's interesting. That version is cool

[1:09:44] though. It runs worse than Switch One,

[1:09:46] but it's amazing that a game like that

[1:09:48] could run at all on the Wii U.

[1:09:51] >> Perfectly it perfectly enjoyable as

[1:09:54] well. Like there are some more frame

[1:09:55] rate drops, but uh you could definitely

[1:09:58] have a great time on that. Um I think it

[1:10:01] was the the big request for the

[1:10:03] follow-up like Tears of the Kingdom to

[1:10:05] really show what Switch One could do.

[1:10:07] And um funnily enough, that seemed to

[1:10:10] fall behind people's expectations in

[1:10:12] some performance terms and it became

[1:10:14] clear that Switch 2 was the target as

[1:10:16] well for that one. So

[1:10:17] >> indeed,

[1:10:17] >> and Nintendo loves to do their um two

[1:10:20] console releases like uh just on the the

[1:10:22] precipice, the kind of dividing point

[1:10:24] between two generations. They always

[1:10:25] release a new Zelda every time.

[1:10:28] >> Yeah, that kind of started with the

[1:10:30] GameCube to Wii transition, didn't it?

[1:10:33] >> Yeah.

[1:10:34] >> Yeah. Good times. I guess the last the

[1:10:36] other thing 10 years ago was I took a

[1:10:38] look at Mighty Number Nine on the Wii U.

[1:10:42] >> I don't know if you remember that

[1:10:43] version but

[1:10:44] >> I remember you being so disappointed.

[1:10:45] >> Well, beyond Mighty Number N itself

[1:10:47] falling super short of expectations, and

[1:10:49] that's a whole crazy situation. The Wii

[1:10:52] U version was rotten. It was so bad. It

[1:10:55] performed so poorly.

[1:10:57] >> It's really hilarious to look back at

[1:10:59] that port. I don't know, Oliver, did you

[1:11:02] ever follow any of the Mighty Number N

[1:11:03] stuff?

[1:11:05] Uh, not too closely. Wasn't there like a

[1:11:07] 3DS version as well that got cancelled

[1:11:09] in the mix there?

[1:11:10] >> Oh, there was a 3DS and VA versions

[1:11:12] announced, right? Obviously, they never

[1:11:14] happened. And we always were like, yeah,

[1:11:16] I mean, this is an Unreal Engine 3 game.

[1:11:19] >> Uh, if they're going to bring it to 3DS

[1:11:21] and VA, they basically got to make a new

[1:11:22] game. And they never did. Obviously,

[1:11:27] I don't think it was ever like

[1:11:28] officially cancelled in the fact that

[1:11:31] they said, "Oh, we're not making this

[1:11:32] anymore." more like I think they just

[1:11:33] you know

[1:11:34] >> everybody stopped talking they stopped

[1:11:36] talking about Mighty Number Nine.

[1:11:38] >> Yeah.

[1:11:39] >> Uh for Yeah. What a time.

[1:11:42] >> But that's going to do it. That's the

[1:11:43] end of the show. Um thank you for

[1:11:46] joining me, guys.

[1:11:48] >> Pleasure. Pleasure.

[1:11:49] >> Great to be here.

[1:11:50] >> It's so difficult to follow up the

[1:11:52] amazing Rich Lead Better. So, I tried my

[1:11:54] best, but we got through it. Hopefully,

[1:11:56] it's good enough. Rich will be back in

[1:11:58] the hosting seat next week and we'll

[1:12:00] continue with DF Direct. But thank you

[1:12:02] everyone for making it to the end. Be

[1:12:04] sure to check us out on

[1:12:05] digitalfoundry.net.

[1:12:07] Uh you know, we got that awesome Patreon

[1:12:09] over there. You can come hang out on the

[1:12:11] on the DF Discord and say, "Man, we need

[1:12:14] more Rich hosting." Or also go into the

[1:12:17] great topic about is Richard eating

[1:12:19] dinner, which was blowing up last night.

[1:12:22] So the answer is yes, he was eating

[1:12:24] dinner last night. But that's going to

[1:12:26] do it from us for now. So, thanks for

[1:12:28] watching and we'll see you next time.