Fortunately, we're not live yet
Be like really quiet, but it just super wasn't awesome
Welcome to the WAN show ladies and gentlemen we are back in the studio once again
Yeah, we heard you guys you said wow
We really liked the WAN show being in the studio with Luke and Linus together, and we said you know what?
That was the plan already
Yeah
So that worked out great for everyone a lot of great topics for you guys today
Best Buy has been accused of
scalping
PlayStation fives that is a pretty
controversial topic
Speaking of controversy we have a video coming out that isn't even up on YouTube yet
But has managed to split our community generating a fair bit of controversy
We're gonna be talking about the hasanabe PC build
Later on in the show what else we got today Luke you've heard of the Vive Pro
But have you heard about the Vive flow?
Probably yes because it all leaked yeah, and also it's announced now
But yes, and and this is a you know an aggregation show at the end of the week
So you've probably heard about all this kind of stuff like the pixel 6 and pixel pass which were also leaked
We'll talk about that later those robot intro
The show is brought to you today by LG whoops Tux care
Okay, can I press these two at the same time? Let's see if this works. Oh, okay?
and FreshBooks
Well we're still getting
Still getting the hang of being back in the studio
We'll explain it when you're older, so why don't we jump right into her first topic for the day?
Best Buy has been accused of
scalping
Playstations 5 so they're Playstations 5 these Playstations 5 the latest ps5 restock happened earlier this week
But there's a catch anyone looking to make a purchase will also have to be a member of Best Buy's
Total tech program yeah
$200 annually
$200 annual with that said the total tech program does have a lot of great benefits Luke for example you get
24 7 tech support 24 months of product protection on most Best Buy purchases free delivery
access to exclusive total tech member prices extended exchange windows and VIP access to dedicated phone and
Chat teams, so it's like Amazon Prime for Best Buy
But with different stuff. It's like a Costco membership, but with different stuff. Yeah, but with completely different actually
It's like very similar so Costco's whole thing is like really good support extended exchanges
Do you have the product protection the right to buy stuff at all well with Costco?
It's not even like a matter of whether you have product
Oh, you just like you didn't literally take it back, and you're like it. I don't like it anymore
I ran it into a wall, and I don't like it anymore to be clear
That's an extremely big problem because to my knowledge Costco does not actually
Put those items back on the shelf and a lot of the time they actually end up getting wasted so
Yeah, so so Costco has a lot of leverage over its partners, and they will basically just say well
We got it back, so you're taking it. Yeah. You're well not a lot of cases
No, it'll be we got it back, so we are not paying for it
Oh, and we are just going to eat it because we can't be bothered to send it back now
I could be wrong it's possible that Costco doesn't work that way anymore or has never worked that way
I'm just this is my this is my disclaimer so that I don't get myself into trouble here
But allegedly a lot of big-box stores a lot of big-box stores do operate that way
And they will have extremely long payment terms like net 180
So they are not even paying for the product until six months after they've received it so in a lot of those cases
They could put it out on the show floor someone could buy it take it home use it for three months bring it back say
You know what forget it. I don't want it anymore, and they will just literally not pay for it
And the manufacturer has no leverage whatsoever. They could demand to be paid, but then they're gonna lose that account and
You don't want to do that
You don't want to lose like Costco or Walmart or whatever else back to back to the issue with best bye-bye
I'm going to play devil's advocate here, and I'm gonna say
It's not that crazy
Okay
Why?
I'm gonna say it's not that crazy because they are far from the only retailer to require some kind of membership
In order to get access to I mean by the product at all
Let alone by the product at you know as a given price. I mean that kind of thing totally exists and
Yeah, so so so here's so here basically what I'm doing is the reason I brought up Costco is because I'm gonna draw a parallel
there if
Costco got a restock of PlayStation fives you would have to pay a membership in order to buy it now is best by
Disrupting the status quo here because they had never previously required a membership in order to get access to these hot products
Absolutely, and it's specifically just for hot products
It's not the same as Costco because Costco is like access to the store as a whole and the most the other memberships are free
like like a
lot of grocery store memberships
The they'll show like oh this thing is I don't know five cents cheaper or whatever if you have the membership
Yeah, that's a free membership. Uh
Yes, yeah. Yes. It's a little different than 200 bucks a year. How much is a Costco membership isn't it 80 something like that?
Yeah, that's for access to the entire store. This is $200 membership for access to as far as I know like
one
Is it just a place well hold on I can find anything
Maybe it's not just one item. Maybe you could buy as many PlayStations as you want, which could be beneficial in your life
Look I'm just making connections here
I'm just saying that you could pretty easily justify a $200 Best Buy membership if you were a filthy
PlayStation 5 scalper. Yeah
So that's scalpers helping scalpers right Best Buy is doing it. Now. You're doing it. That's I think we're really okay
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. We did not we have not charged any membership fees for for anything
Except flow plane what I didn't mean you and float plane has no benefits
Do early access there anymore. Actually, they do have
They do have benefits
We do it since and behind the scenes meet the team meet the team is pretty cool cutting room floor is one of my favorite
Though especially with stuff like the Intel extreme tech upgrades because those videos
I mean, we'll have like four or five six hours of footage to make a 20-minute video
Yeah, there's a lot of a material that ends up on the cutting room floor. Yeah
Anyway, the point is look I am NOT going to defend Best Buy but what I have seen or eyes rather
I'm not going to
Earnestly defend Best Buy I was playing devil's advocate before I don't I don't like it at all
I'm not going to defend Best Buy but I saw people calling for their heads saying it should be illegal and the truth is
It's not it's not illegal. They are far from the only retailer to require some kind of membership
I mean even there's a badminton club that I play at where you have to buy a
Membership in order to have the privilege to bike of buying court time. Yeah, this is this is not an unusual business model
It just is a new one for a company like
Best Buy who has I think tried very hard over the the decades
They've been in business to be more mainstream
I think Best Buy has has tried and succeeded at being a mainstream source for technology and in my opinion
the damage that they're doing to their brand right now is
Far greater than the revenue that they could possibly hope to make from this move
The weird thing to me is like I'm looking at the total tech website
Yeah, and honestly like there's a couple things that I noticed on here that that weren't directly in the notes
Like there's the Best Buy protection thing. But also if you buy an Apple product it comes with Apple care plus. Yeah
Yeah, like okay. Okay free installation of things that you could reasonably have installation for when I first read that
I was like, will you install my PlayStation but no, it's like TVs and appliances, right?
Some VIP access whatever. Okay. It doesn't sound that bad
Like I don't want it but like they already do stuff like this
This doesn't sound too outside of the grain. Yeah, and then when they're talking about the things that you gain
Yeah, they don't even mention
Exclusive items they mention access to exclusive total tech member prices, right?
Which is very in line with a lot of these other programs. They don't mention the exclusive items
So that's very interesting to me. Anthony's clearly watching the show. He's typing in the doc right now
He goes extended warranty and 24-7 tech support is a big benefit that used to be its own thing for that much
So yeah, some of you might not know this but Anthony actually used to work for Geek Squad
In fact, you used to work for Geek Squad. That's right
So yeah, like this doesn't really seem that bad
It's actually kind of interesting especially if you do buy a lot of tech from there
Like a lot of PlayStations. I like you just like to buy a lot of PlayStations
Yeah, the weird thing to me is that it doesn't actually mention the exclusive items and the timing the timing makes a ton of sense
If I was Best Buy and I wanted to milk the holiday season for as much as humanly possible
The timing for introducing a program like this is absolutely perfect for trying to catch those holiday shoppers that will pay
Anything that would pay a thousand dollars to put a PlayStation 5 under the tree
But this way what Best Buy is effectively doing is they're taking that money
They're taking that couple hundred dollars and they're taking it rather than letting a scalper make it
So here is a question for you. And this really is
One of those questions that has no easy answer Luke. Hmm
If that PlayStation 5 is going to sell for $700
Let's say because the disk drive version is $500 plus 200 for this Best Buy membership if it's gonna sell for
$700 who should get that money?
So let's assume we live in a world where
Where there's nothing we can do to keep it out of the hands of scalpers and effectively
You are not going to be able to get it for MSRP
Who should get that money? Should it be Sony?
Should it be the retailer? Should it be a scalper?
I think you saw that argument coming and I do want to talk about that
I did see that argument. We can talk headed it off at the pass
Afterwards, I don't know. I don't I don't
Like answering this I guess because I don't think Best Buy should do it
Because then when does that get pulled back?
Well, it gets pulled back when Best Buy is feels like under natural
competitive pressure from EB Games or from Amazon or whoever else like pricing the the one thing
Capitalism does pretty well is it drives down pricing when you have legitimate competing entities and but
This type of system around forever in a way because they don't they don't say what products honestly again
On their website. They literally don't mention exclusive products. Oh, I think this system is here to stay and I I think it's gonna be
Very relevant around like console launch, but we're not talking about the system though
We're talking about if they just increase the price to what the market will bear which clearly
$700 I mean these things are they're gonna sell out instantly. I think yeah, I think they'd sell for more than that
So if they just increased if just increase the price if someone has to do it should Sony take the additional money
Should the retailer take the additional money or should a scalper take the additional money?
hmm, I
Don't think it should be the retailer for
I don't think it should be basically anyone hold on. It's gonna come down to scalpers
Let me take let me take I'm gonna take a stand here as a former retailer employee
We don't make that much. I don't think it's I don't think it should be the retailer
I don't think it should be anyone and I think that results in it should be the scalper if I'm being fair
The reason why I'm saying that is because it's just gonna get marked up again. The market will bear
Well, then why shouldn't the retailer increase the price again? So the market like I
Could honestly see like $1,200 PlayStations. So the question for you becomes
If because I think the price to the consumer goes up
It because I think the scalpers are just gonna hit harder if this becomes the norm
So tell me the prices consumer goes up if the retailer takes more. What's the difference?
The retailer is just a middleman
The scalper is just a middleman
Ultimately, the pricing is dictated by what insane people who want to put a PlayStation 5 under the Christmas tree are willing to pay
They're not the ones making craziness happen
Craziness happen. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not I'm not what's the difference? I don't think anyone should be
What we're gonna get into do you want to literally just further in the notes you want a vanilla
You want a chocolate middleman? Yeah, what kind of middleman you want Neapolitan Neapolitan middleman?
I I want other solutions. I I don't I think this is too basic and
I and we've been talking about this for a long time. We've done a little bit of our own efforts
Maybe we should do verified actual gamer for consoles. I don't know if we could get our hands on them. We'd absolutely do it
Yeah, and I don't know that verified actual gamer is the best solution. No, it's not a perfect solution
No, but I think there are better solutions. Well, okay. What I mean verified actual gamer program was the best thing
I could come up. I think it's the best. I think it's the best thing that we could have done
Well, what's the best I can be I don't necessarily know the best why I can do a ton better but PlayStation can I mean?
What are okay? Okay. So here's a proposal you could have a national registry
Okay, nice of of of all their sin numbers in the HTML. I'll play it later
Yeah, well, it would be a social security number in the u.s. Right, but whatever the equivalent of your your personal identification number
Okay, so you you enter you you create a a console buyer database
And you ensure that for each individual person only one console and a maximum of five
Controllers can be purchased in case they break one then that's it. That's the rules. That's all that's all you're allowed to have
I think having some type of some type of registration process for buying a console is fine
I I don't think I don't think you have to use a social security number
I think there's other ways but then there's I mean there's gonna be a way around
I mean we talked about this back when BC rolled out that vaccine that vaccine app where basically you just like flash this app
that is it's so stupid because it's just a screenshot of
Okay, there's a QR code. It's like it's better now, but the point is it was basically just
There was a there's a screenshot that you could just show to anyone and unless they had the scanner which nobody had them yet
There was no way that they could validate anything and then before that it was literally a piece of paper like your your vaccine
verification
Documentation was a piece of paper that when you went in and got immunized they didn't even they didn't even yeah
I'm just making sure there's if someone cares what lot number of Pfizer I got then they can see it
I guess doesn't matter the point is they gave you this stupid piece of cardboard that could obviously be
like
Copied in two seconds, and they were when I crossed the border
They didn't even want to see the app
I was like gonna load up the app and show it to them they were like no
I need your piece of paper. They didn't even tell me to keep this
I just held on to it because I was like I don't know this seems like it someone might ask about it
They told me to keep they told you to keep it. Well. They didn't tell me
Ridiculous, I think I got mine before you so maybe it was clearer by that point that people were gonna need them
Yeah, so I think it's just it's it okay
There's no right way to do a registry then because either it's gonna be something that can be easily fooled like that
I mean your two examples have nothing to do with how this would work, but there is ways around or it's gonna be overreach
I mean we can't have retailers. You know having databases of citizens. That's madness
I mean you sort of do in a way. I know I
know
Like it's the thing that doesn't mean we should enable it more
It's pretty much worse right because if PlayStation
Retracts and goes like no all the retailers are doing a horrible job. We're gonna track this from now on we're gonna manage this from now on
They could do it you mean Sony
Do would I say PlayStation, but like yeah, so yeah, so if Sony decides to create their own registry well
Then you've got all kinds of other complicated issues because you've got
Effectively a foreign entity that is collecting information on like you know American or Canadian or European
Citizens like our list though because if you have like a PSN account you have to put in all your that's true
But to buy a PlayStation you don't need to have a PSN account
Yeah, I don't I think it's I think they're still getting information regards
I they could also work with retailers to have like one pool that the other retailers don't get to see
but like when you try to check out it compares against and
You're gonna have people abuse it anyway
I mean one of the biggest problems for retailers is not their policies gonna buy a PlayStation
Yeah, there's definitely ways around it
But I feel like some amount of effort would be better than clearly nothing like there's there's individual people that are getting
Hundreds of these and like the same thing's happening with graphics cards, right?
People are getting pallets of them. Like there is there is some amount of work that is actively being done
Not by the scalpers to funnel these things into scalpers hands because it's easier for these groups of people to do it
Absolutely, because if they if they receive a pallet of graphics cards, you don't have to market it anymore
You don't have to deal with a bunch of customers anymore
You can make an over returns
You can make an agreement with these miners or scalpers or whoever that there's no returns reduce transaction fees
You can do all this kind of stuff by just selling the whole palette is one thing
Right, and you guys got to understand like particularly in computer retail. You're lucky to make five to six points on a sale
Yeah, so, okay
Let's let's break that down right because you've got to pay probably I think NCIX after some fixed amount paid about a 1%
Commission on your sales. Okay, so maybe you're paying a salesperson Commission
Even if you're not you're paying them to stand there and sell it instead of something selling something else
So there's there's overhead there. You're going to be paying some overhead in
Transaction processing fees so with credit cards that can be as much as like greater than 1%
So you can be you can be eating it there
You are you're taking up shelf space. You're paying actual, you know rent to store these things. Yep, you're gonna get some returns
It's pretty typical even verified actual gamer got somewhere in the neighborhood of around 2% returns or people just canceling orders
And then we're just kind of sitting there going
Okay, we came up with a system because the way verified actual gamer worked we had this
Database of customers who wanted the cards
So the people who were the next ones through the gauntlet we would just contact them and say hey you were the next one in
The gauntlet someone ended up not wanting it. Here you go
But the point is that there's so much overhead that if you could have a single customer take that whole thing
Pay by pay by wire instead of credit card. You've got that money immediately
There's no worrying about chargeback like friendly fraud anything like that your agreement that they can't do any return
So I understand why they do it
But it's really really and right the big the bigger issue is there's no consequences. No
outside of
Shaming that takes place on social media like they don't care about at all just to be very clear
Yeah, retailers don't the manufacturers the one that ends up looking bad when some mining operation posts the picture of the 60 graphics cards
That they just picked up really a lot more or a lot more than that
So there's there's really there's there's been pictures
there's no consequence somebody rolls up their garage and it's literally just full of PlayStation fives and
like if there's if there's basically any
genuine effort and there isn't
Effort from either retailers or Sony or whatever to do the other side
Like if the only amount of effort coming from the people selling it that aren't scalpers is to stop scalpers
That kind of stuff wouldn't happen
because no individual person should be able to get their hands on like
Tens or hundreds of these things and to be clear when we say they shouldn't be able to we don't mean
Legally, they should be able to there's a lot of people calling for laws against scalping but coming back to my earlier point
What is the really sticky? What is the difference between a retailer and a scalper and there's also like
How do you differentiate between like you buy something you use it you enjoy it?
It's not a return because it's not broken and now you want to sell it which should be
Completely allowed and how would you how would you enforce that?
There's also stores that literally just function that way
Yeah, there's a lot of I used to lose the work in produce and one of the local sushi shops would walk in and like
Load up on groceries and then go effectively sell it by turning it into food. Like how do you
That's kind of basic, but there's also places that will go buy stuff from Costco and resell it in their own stores
Yeah water bottles a lot of gas stations just buy like drinks from Costco. I mean Costco has a business membership
Yeah for that. So what's the what's the difference now Dave juror says in the u.s. There are laws against it with certain items
Well, yeah, but a PlayStation 5 is not essential. I don't think anybody is gonna make that argument
Okay. Yeah, like there there are
Anti-scalping anti hoarding laws that do exist and right because that came into play with like the the
Alcohol cleaning stuff and also exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah
But as long as it's as long as it's a non-essential item like a game console
I really I really don't think you're gonna win that battle and honestly, I don't think it's the right answer
The right answer is for everybody to just not pay the higher price
yeah, but unless you can get all of
Humanity to get together and cooperate on that which it's not gonna happen. It's not going to happen
There's just there really just is nothing that can be done about it. So back to my original point
You know what? I've kind of I've kind of come around
Back to my original point. I
Say it might as well be the retailer. I
I
Think it's kind of moot
Because because of the as as long as people are gonna pay whatever and they're gonna pay whatever
Yeah, then it just doesn't even really matter
John wick says other stores like EB Games require you to buy at least a hundred dollars of other stuff when you purchase your ps5
From them. I think that's more reasonable because
Oh Conrad Oh
Conrad change your username. It's confusing. Yeah Conrad's one of the float plane stuff. Anyway, the point is that I
Think that's a lot more reasonable because I think that when you're buying a console
you're pretty likely to need like a game and a second controller or something like that like it's
It's unfortunate that Best Buy is okay. Now I've come I've come back around again. I've 180'd again. I
Wouldn't mind a more
Who was it who was doing that? Sorry, I lost your message Conrad EB Games, apparently
I wouldn't mind something like that like look you got to purchase something else as well
But making you buy effectively the extended warranty is pretty crappy
So what they're doing isn't wrong. It's not illegal. It's just crappy
And if you don't like it, then you should stop shopping at Best Buy shop somewhere else. Yeah
What with your wallet? Yeah, I mean you can Sony is apparently offering the opportunity to purchase a PlayStation 5
Console directly, so they've set up a website for that. I mean this makes a ton of sense to me again
I would rather see the manufacturer take the additional value
Yeah, oh, I don't think you're paying for it
No, you are
You're paying MSRP. Yeah, but that means that Sony is taking whatever margin there would have been for Best Buy. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah
All right, well, I think that's pretty much all I have to say about that
And then Nick has a comment that it's kind of similar to what's happening with GPUs
Because like the MSRP for GPUs is just creeping slowly slowly not even that slowly
I guess and not even really creeping. It's it's sprinting forward people even mentioned on the last verified actual gamer drop
They're like wow, I mean it's at MSRP, but it's like pretty expensive and it's like yeah cuz the MSRP went up
Well something something people might not realize is I've I've seen
I'm not gonna name any names. So let's just say a
GPU chipset maker. So this is either AMD or Nvidia
But I have seen them
announce an MSRP and
Then I've heard from board partners through the grapevine that even though the board partners are still expected to hit that MSRP somehow magically and
Even though the media never get any kind of update that the MSRP has changed
I've heard about those chipsets getting more expensive to the board partners
And then basically just these these chipset manufacturers are not even manufacturers designers because they're all manufactured by Samsung or TSMC or GlobalFoundries or whatever
These these designers
Be it AMD or Nvidia basically just sit there and let their partners
Take the flak just act as a meat shield while they sit and extract more value out of their partners and because they're all bound by
NDAs that are not just NDAs. There's a lot more than the legal ramifications of leaking information from a partner like AMD or Nvidia
Like they will they will cut your allocation. They're not obligated to sell you GPUs
They could sell them to somebody else. They will cut your they will cut your allocation
they will destroy your business and they can do it overnight and
They'll they can be vindictive about it like oh man
The GPU industry is not going to be able to do that
Like, oh man. The GPU industry is so weird. It's super weird
What they really need is collective bargaining like if if all the GPU board partners got together and were like
Look
We are not going to accept three percent profit margins anymore
We are not going to hit your MSRP. I don't know if it would matter. I think it would
Well, it okay, so it wouldn't matter because they would never all get together and do that. Okay for one
Yeah, but for two I genuinely think especially Nvidia, honestly, I could see AMD wanting to play ball more but especially Nvidia
I feel like would get so cheesed about that that their immediate response would just be like we're not working with board partners anymore
We're just gonna make all our own GPUs get right. Yeah, it would take them a while to build up the capacity to do that
It's and it's clear that that's been the direction that they've been moving for a number of years
Definitely thinking about making themselves less dependent on board partners. Um, and it's kind of funny because you say you couldn't imagine AMD doing that
But that actually no used to be AMD's model like AMD used to compete directly with their own board partners back in the remember BBA cards
I just wouldn't see AMD get as vindictive about it
Well, that's because AMD doesn't have the option to get as vindictive. Nobody needs them as badly. It's probably true like come on
I mean I I I
Look, I'm not I'm not trying to I'm not trying to throw any shade or anything like that
The truth of the matter is that Nvidia's partners whether it's through Nvidia's actions or through their own actions
are a fair bit more dependent on Nvidia and
It's a lot more
lucrative to be engaged with Nvidia on that GPU business than it is to be engaged with AMD they just sell so
many more
Cards, so even if Nvidia is squeezing you and you're only making you know, four points on the board
Let's say AMD could offer you six points because remember AMD still has to have that street price competitive with Nvidia
And they have their own costs right it costs to get the chips fed. They have to buy memory, right?
Yeah, they they have their own costs, right?
So even if AMD could get you more margin if Nvidia boards are outselling AMD boards four to one
Which is about what it is that it I thought it was even worse than that
No, I think they're at about 80 percent market share for discrete GPU right now
Don't quote me on that because it does tend to kind of shift around also
How are you? How are you measuring that? Are you just doing gamers eating like steam survey?
That's really all you can go on because right now it's honestly
However, much can be produced. Yes, but Nvidia books way more capacity than AMD because they sell way more GPUs than AMD
It's that simple. Yeah
Um, speaking of wanting to sell way more things you want to talk about the Facebook live audio room with Intel execs
Yeah, so that was really refreshing today
It's been a long time since I remember man. I'm gonna hopefully I'm not gonna get anybody in trouble, but I had a
Mike my one of my contacts at Intel Agnes
I actually haven't talked to her in forever the last time I talked to her I was like kind of beating her up because
I was like look
You guys have a PR problem
Because you guys are so determined to be professional that you've lost any semblance of
Humanity whatsoever. Yeah, you guys are a nameless faceless organization that nobody cares about because you try so hard to be a nameless faceless
organization that nobody cares about
And basically I I forget what I had wanted to do
Oh, I remember what this this was around the time that they had that benchmarking scandal where they worked with the
The third party or something to produce benchmarks for them that were like clearly
Clearly very misleading and then they issued this total non-apology and I was like no
You guys need to get a human face out there. You need to actually apologize like you actually mean it
And you got it. You got it. You got to stop being so stuffy, right?
so I was I was giving her heck about it because I was like it's it's
You guys are impossible to work with right now because everyone just looks bad
You guys look bad
Now I look bad and at the end of the day and you know, she was neither able to confirm nor deny this
But at the end of the day as far as I could tell it was gross incompetence not any actual
Willful, they've been so
Long and I know I've brought this up actually like probably double-digit amount of times on land show. Yeah
I there's that there's that scenario where I talked about how they pulled out of conventions
Yes, because they're like, oh we don't see the roi in it
They've just been so disconnected from like people for so long. It's been ridiculous
So that was one of the last conversations I actually had with agnes and I I mean
She wasn't able to confirm or deny this because I know how it is
but my my belief is that the reason they didn't ultimately issue an apology is because
Issuing an apology is the same as saying mea culpa
It's it's admitting you did something wrong and admitting you did something wrong to your customers. Well, that's human
That's how you engage with your customers. That's how you build a relationship. That's how you build trust, right?
Admitting you're wrong from a legal standpoint
Not great. Now you're opening yourself up to lawsuits
So my my belief is that what happened there was a case of gross utter incompetence
Not from the engineers. It must have been an exec level person
Again, she could not not get any kind of confirmation
And then what I suspect is that the lawyers came in and said whoa
We just need this to quietly go away without us actually saying we did anything wrong because if we do that
All of a sudden we could be opening ourselves up to all kinds of legal action
that's what I believe happened and
It doesn't change that that just makes you look like this this
Personality-less super slimo like emotionless monster, right? Yeah a bunch of suits so
Had a really refreshing conversation today. We did these we've done six now
Actually, I thought was the last one we did six of these Facebook live audio rooms
as as a partnership with Facebook and
We did some really good ones Luke and I did our favorite games. We did one with Wendell Linux then now in the future
Did a really great one
with
James and Brian the electricians are talking about should you let your kids use tech? What's our policies? And the one today was
Is Moore's law dead and Intel actually managed to get me two
VP level executives and Agnes was there
That's why I brought her up because she was there presumably to supervise but she didn't she was there
She didn't she didn't she didn't step in. She didn't say anything
But I had two VP level execs and basically they were like, yeah, we want to talk to you as humans
And then they did
cool, and it was great because
I mean I I tweeted about this without actually i've never met pat gelsinger gelsinger. Excuse me. I've never met pat
He's the new ceo of intel. That's about six months ago
All I knew was as soon as I saw the appointment
I knew that he had a background as an engineer and that made me really excited because intel's previous ceo was an accounting background
And that sucks. That's not how you that's not how you drive passion and and a product focused
Culture you need to have someone who actually understands
What you are doing not just who you sell it to but what you make and so I was really excited and I tweeted I was
I was like, thank you, you know, what does your competition who's killing it right now all have in common?
nvidia
engineering background ceo
AMD
Engineering background ceo. It's almost like there's a pattern and I was like I was extremely excited about it
And when I was talking to these guys today, uh, one of the things I asked them was tell me a story
Tell me a story that illustrates to you
how the last six months have been a turning point for intel and how people are more excited about what they're doing and
One of them came back to me and they were like, well, okay, here's something
I I brought this proposal to pat and and my boss and it was this like huge
Undertaking, you know, obviously it's all it's all nd8 at this point what it is couldn't say exactly what it was
but it's this huge undertaking and
And the the reading between the lines going to be really expensive
And I basically said okay, and it's going to take us. Here's what we're going to do and and he was listening
rapturously and
Uh, I finished up and he basically said wow, I really like it. That sounds really exciting, but I want it two years earlier
and i'm like
Thank you. Yeah, and he's like put more pressure behind it and he's like, yeah, my team loves that kind of pressure and it's refreshing
Yeah to have that kind of that kind of
Pressure where it's not you know what the right business thing to do might not be to build it two years faster because
Time is money and when you want more time, you got to pay money and you know, both of them were
They they were human, but they were still very professional these guys obviously didn't reach
vp level in a company like intel without learning to
Learning to talk around. Yeah learning to speak corporate speak a little bit
But the good news is that you know, i'm familiar enough with that manner of communication that I can see it and I can go
Okay
So what you're saying is there's this willingness to invest in technology for the sake of building cool stuff and doing it now
Which is how you get?
Really intense fans. Well, yeah, and those really intense fans is how you sell them
fans is how you sell lots of stuff because
We've talked about this before lots of like friend groups or family units will have like the tech person
And everyone in that friend group or family unit will just do what that person says
And not just do what that person says you got to understand that at the enthusiast level, right?
Even though intel's market share in in the debt in the broader desktop space might still be excellent because they can just produce more than amd
in the enthusiast space
It's it's we've seen reports coming out of retailers in europe that have basically said yeah like intel amd like neck and neck
Or even that amd is out ahead and it's more than just what those enthusiasts say
I mean, it's what those enthusiasts have experience with that's it's trust right like if you have amd in your system and you're like
Yeah, uh, you know the 10 850 k or whatever is a really good deal right now
Uh, because you know intel clearly has a fire lit under their butt to move these things and stay competitive
I'm gonna go. Well, look i'm not that budget constrained
I don't mind spending an extra 30 dollars which in the grand scheme of buying a new gaming machine is not that much money
What do you run?
That's how that conversation goes. That's what they want to know
They don't want to know what's a good bang for the buck that I calculated on a spreadsheet
They want to know what are you running and like the biggest problem. I think when when risins were we're starting to
Kind of hit the scene in the beginning. Yeah was a lot of people that have used intel for
many years
Potentially their whole lives. Yeah
We're worried about like am I now going to have problems because cpus are generally not something that you really have a problem with right?
So you went like i'm taking this piece of my system that has been rock solid
Yeah for years and i'm replacing it with some different brand
Is this going to be an issue and it I think that was the biggest problem with rising adoption for a long time
Was they needed to show everyone like no, we're cool. This is well gen 1 was also kind of a piece of food for a while
It's also not amazing, but they they figured it out
And so yeah like brand loyalty, especially with something that doesn't have a lot of problems
It's tough to overtake like if there's something in your life that you have
A version of it and it works completely fine. Yeah and a very reasonable amount of time in the future
You need another version. You're very likely to just go back by the new one. Yeah, I like I like to go back
Yeah, I like I7. I'll have the latest I7. Yeah done. Yep
Yeah, and that that's true across like a huge range of things. It's not just computer components. Absolutely. Like for example, I
Like telling you about our sponsors. Yeah, I you know, I I get I get one sponsor and I think gee
That was a good sponsor. I think i'll do it again. I'll have another please
All right. Let's talk about LG's UltraGear GP9 gaming speaker. Let me tell you this thing
is
Not cheap. Okay
Not cheap, but it's actually legitimately really cool. So it's got an ES9038 Pro Quad DAC
Plugging into it with headphones. So okay that the main jam of it is that it acts as kind of like a gaming soundbar
But with surprisingly good positional audio and then plugging into it with headphones
I was actually really really impressed again by how accurate the positional audio is out of this thing
There's EQ customization through the XBOOM LG app for iOS and Android. It's got RGB lighting, of course
It allows you to quickly and conveniently switch between the speaker and headphones just with a single button. It's got bluetooth
So if you want to use it as a bluetooth speaker, you can also do that and it features echo cancellation and noise cancellation
So if you've got your your game running through it, oops, I turned it on if you've got your game running through it
Oh, well, there's there's the RGB lighting. Um, apparently it's battery-based
You can still talk to someone through it
You can still use it for your comms and it actually does an outstanding job
We did a short circuit on this recently
It does an outstanding job of blocking everything out. So you guys can check that out at the link down below
The show is also brought to you by Tuxcare
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Love you guys one of these days
You'll have a sponsor read where there's nothing that I don't know how to pronounce in it, but it is not this day
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Just for the future. Everyone just calls it Postgres. Postgres. You just don't you don't say the whole thing. All righty then
Just call it Postgres. Good to know. Yeah. What else do we want to talk about today, Luke?
Pixel 6 and Pixel Pass? Yeah
Hit me
Google is working on a subscription service called Pixel Pass
It bundles a pixel subscription service. I'll pass
It bundles a pixel phone with a collection of Google services YouTube premium slash music because it's one thing
Google one. I literally have no idea what that is. I
Forget because I don't care but I definitely knew what it was at some point. Let me double-check
Play pass which is like games on your Android phone and Google Fi
What's notably missing is Stadia on Google TV. That's a little awkward. It would be nice if it had Stadia on it. Really?
So you can play so much Stadia? It would feel more rounded out. So you can play all four games on Stadia?
Considering it has Play Pass it would feel more rounded out. I wouldn't really want to use it
But that's that's its own thing. No word on pricing yet, and I believe I don't see the answer to this in here
but I think you get I
Think the whole idea is that you get a pixel, right?
Yeah, like I don't think it oh it there it is I didn't read this line
It bundles a pixel phone with all those services. Got it. Yeah, so Google one is basically cloud storage and
Google Fi is their like
Cellphone service, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a phone plan. So you're getting a phone a phone plan
storage some mobile games YouTube premium YouTube music
Yeah
And you get to keep paying for your phone. Yep over time
I mean, I guess if you were already gonna subscribe to a bunch of those services. Anyway, it's not the stupidest thing ever
It's really not that different. Yeah, then a normal phone plan though. It's a normal phone plan plus
extra steps play pass and Google one and YouTube premium that being said Google Fi for the short period of time that I used it because
It ended up being cheaper when I was on the road than an alternative service like buying a local sim
So I had a very very temporary Google Fi. It was really good. Okay, it was genuinely really good. So I
Don't know whose towers it's on. No, Google doesn't have their own. So I was in Taiwan. So I have no idea there
Okay, well shows you what I know then
And in the States, I'm not sure
So like your service is gonna be its own thing
I was also gonna say what was really nice about it was I could like pause the service or cancel the service whenever
But this is probably not the case on a pixel pass. So you kind of lose that flexibility. I'm assuming
Here's the pixel 6 page that was leaked
Smarter chip boost to camera magic with tensor cores probably totally borked on release just like almost every other one. Hey
roasted
boom roasted
Google partners with t-mobile in the US. Okay. Okay. There you go
I don't think it's a thing in Canada if I'm okay all day battery life
I gotta say battery life is one thing that is
Borderline on the fold I
will very regularly be
Extremely close to the end of my battery at the end of the day with that said I have it set to 85%
Maximum charge so that I am hopefully going to retain that what little capacity I have for as long as possible
But this is with me usually plugging it in in my car on the way to and from work
so the fact that we're so close and I'm actually giving it probably about 10% worth of juice throughout the day is pretty
pretty tough
pretty tough
Hmm Qualcomm this is in our notes here Qualcomm is apparently
a mad bra that another yet another company is making smartphone SoC's rather than just using
Snapdragon I mean if Qualcomm doesn't like it. Maybe they should have
You know been more consistent about delivering big performance improvement year after year before we jump there. I was trying to find this I
Was surprised it wasn't in the dock, and then I guess I forgot about it
I'm gonna throw it at the very top of the dock right below the next way and show thing right above
Yeah, you'll see it screen ranch Nokia
6310 a new version of the unbreakable brick phone wait. Sorry I I tuned out for a second here because this is
hilarious
the Snapdragon
the Qualcomm tweet about this is
We've decided to make our own smartphone SoC instead of using Snapdragon
And then it's this this this Twitter trend where you put a bunch of red legs
And it's like well yeah, but the problem is that
You guys have been a big part of the reason that Android gets such crappy post-sales support
so
Apparently the
Tensor chip that Google is using is going to allow Google to provide five years of updates, which it's about
freaking time because
Android has looked
Stupid compared to what Apple provides for iOS devices for years now
I mean Horst did a Jonathan Horst who's our host for Mac address did a video recently where he installed the latest
iOS on an iPhone SE
like
That's insane. It's pretty intense. Where do you find this talk? That's insane. You know that phone okay that that
That that little that little phone that we used to use for the FLIR thermal camera the little clip-in lightning one
Yeah back when you were still working as a writer, okay that phone can run the latest version of iOS
We still have it that is pretty sweet. That's insane. Yeah, oh
This is in here, okay, all right, sorry what were you talking about?
I was trying to find this topic the whole time because I was trying to figure out what you're talking about
I didn't realize it was the same thing okay
Yeah, go to the very top of the dock. Yeah, um oh
No, what do we got here? It's amazing 6310 brick phone is back, and it got a facelift
So is this running Android or what I think so, but it comes with snake
Tired of powerful smartphones that can do everything oh
My goodness all right I
Mean ah people keep saying for those who long for simpler times Nokia has something just for you
But yeah, but the Nokia brand was bought out like who even owns the Nokia brand
Nokia is not doing anything if you think of it as like the Nokia that used to do stuff who bought
Nokia brand phone and it's also just like kind of garbage
HMD global oi whatever whatever HMD global oi is that's 16 megabytes of
Mega megabytes of RAM like what who does HMD global own?
key people
Brands okay, they own Nokia. It doesn't say doesn't say what else so they've added some new features such as the ability
to zoom on menus for easier readability and wireless FM
Hey, FM radio. That's the future right there. I was gonna. I was gonna challenge you to do like a
Like a one week. I switched or something, but honestly it just seems too terrible
Yeah, I mean I could it might be an interesting video, but I don't think I will know yeah speaking of things
I don't think I'll do I don't think I will dodge the controversy around our
Hasan, abhi build okay. Yeah, tell me about it. So do you know who?
Nope, hasan abhi is nope okay, so I think I think when we went live
He was actually live on twitch, so I he's probably probably still live that was only like an hour
Oh, I don't know his full name. I guess this is Hassan the twitch streamer. Yes, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, no, that's just sorry that has an obvious just his handle so yes
Hassan
We sort of randomly kind of hooked up over Twitter when he was like yo
I need a PC, and I was like sure sure why not and so we decided for fun that
we wanted to make the most left PC the most left-leaning PC and
So far on floatplane it has managed to generate a significant amount of controversy
I think that this is one of the worst like dislike ratios that I have ever seen on a video on floatplane and
a lot of the controversy seems to be
because people
Find Hassan to be a very polarizing figure okay, and or they think that we are kind of
Taking a stand that really our intention was never to to take now
Obviously if we're building a PC for Hassan, it's gonna be Hassan themed so you can see that we've got this
Wonderful hammer and sickle. Oh wow decal for the front
Oh my the color scheme is red
Oh my obviously and we've got this delightful side panel graphic that the one and only Sarah, but created for us
We've got Jeff Bezos on a plate with some broccoli. It's good for you
Wait he's a twitch streamer though I
Mean I don't know anything about this dude. I know that he like exists. I know his name. That's it
I I don't know. There's a there's a weird dichotomy going on here, though
Theoretically a pretty huge amount of his efforts are just making Bezos richer ah yes
I think I I want to think that he's aware of the irony of that yeah
I don't know. I yeah sure
Yeah, so I guess I just want to kind of get out ahead of this and say look the point of this video
Is to have some fun?
The point of this video is to make a PC for a prominent creator
we we kind of take some shots at both sides you know we
We're just can we just
here can we just all be friends can we just build a PC for someone and
And you know kind of take some shots at their viewpoints take some shots at the other viewpoints you know
And so you shot at both sides, so just everyone hates it is that what's going on?
Is that what's happening you're the enemy of everyone I like it, that's good, I'm probably gonna enjoy this video
I haven't seen it yet. That's fantastic. Oh
Man yeah
So we should have I mean I guess I guess maybe wait. No. I don't like it
I've stopped my float plane membership over this no stop
Come back
Yeah, please please come back. Please come back. We still we really need you
We need you float plane float plane oh
Oh
Yeah, I don't know man. I mean. It's just it's one of those things where I I understand
There's nothing we're gonna be able to do to make everyone happy
So I guess we're just gonna make everyone unhappy while we're at it
Maybe I don't know what what's next the Ben Shapiro PC like what would be what would be an equivalent?
You know we make it out of we make it out of that one piece of wood from Home Depot
This is gonna be not please try not to get us canceled move water cooler with ivermectin anyway
All right I
Guess that's I guess that's pretty much it you know
Geo master 337 says what about the Trump PC throwback to tech showdown you know what's funny is I actually
Tried many times to get a Trump PC off the ground internally. I wanted to do I wanted to do just
the
bodiest tackiest all white and gold PC and then for part two I
Wanted to attempt to hand deliver it to the White House
That was that was that was my that was my plan. I wanted to do it Nick would
Not allow it. She was like
No, I'm like look. We don't have to take his stance and for that matter you know
When there's a Democratic president, I'd happily build a PC for them as well. I don't care for me
It was just like the fact that it would be so easy to build a themed PC around that guy
Just like oh man like it would just have to be like the front of it
You can picture it right like it would have to be the tallest PC with the biggest letters
You know like it would just be it would just be hilarious. Yeah, it would have been hilarious
It would have been it would have been huge
and Nick was like
Absolutely not
Jolan true says Nick is smart. You should listen to him. He did I did I did
I did listen to I did listen sometimes Linus takes counsel not always
Sometimes look sometimes I I understand that my kind of irreverent sense of humor is not shared by other people
Oh
I think yeah, I think there's also
Yeah, I don't know this video is gonna be interesting to watch. Yeah, are you guys gonna? Is it going to YouTube?
Yeah, I'm not gonna back down. I'm not gonna back down. It's uh, it's going to YouTube
It's it's the it's the left-leaning PC. It literally leans to the left. We took two of the feet off
And we are not shipping Hassan the feet like there's no there's no haha
Just kidding. Go ahead and put the feet back on
This is literally like a five thousand six thousand dollar computer that is missing two of the feet on the case. Oh
My goodness, that's so funny
There's gonna be some inconveniences when Hassan gets it. There's gonna be some stuff that like is not the best
I don't know that he has the technical know-how to fix it
For example every time you boot it up you get to listen to not just a little bit of but the entire
Soviet Union national anthem
If you try to cancel it
Your your Windows Explorer will not load and you will have to reboot your computer and sit through it
I
Don't want to spoil too much but there's a macro you should have made it so that there was a power bar like built into
The computer so that it had to share the power that it received
What there is is a pre-installed folding at home instance
I think I'm gonna enjoy this video. I think it's gonna be funny
Yeah, I think I can understand in the current political climate how people are
You know edgy little edgy about it
just all I'm gonna ask is just try to watch it with a sense of humor instead of trying to watch it with like a
Hating everyone and everything kind of kind of thing like I just I don't need to be canceled over this
I just was like hey
The leftist PC that's kind of a funny theme for a build
let's do it and
You know, I I didn't I didn't really like learn much about Hassan
I had one call with him where I kind of talked through is his tech plan
But but like that was kind of the extent of it. I was like this seems like a pretty cool theme for a build
Let's do it and for better or for worse. It's cool. Did he know the theme?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he knew quite the extent of it
Like I told him that it might have two left side panels on it. So like one of them might have fitment issues
I didn't tell him the whole thing was gonna like sit crooked
That's man
That's exciting. Yeah
Log 1x says we need the Ben Shapiro PC. I mean, yeah, I I don't know
I don't know what anybody needs. I I'm not the doctor. I don't have the right prescription for you
All right. What else we got in terms of topics? Oh, this is a this is a pretty big topic
LTT store we don't have any new product launches this week or anything crazy like that. So just reminder
We got great mouse pads, by the way, Luke
I am so grateful that you guys finally got reviews working on the site because check this out we have over
2,000 five-star reviews for the Northern Lights desk pad. Did you have any idea? No, actually, that's you
We have sold a couple desk pad just a few. Yeah, just a few
Yeah, 2,000 reviews, but what we do have is an announcement. We are starting a newsletter and
Nick and I got together and basically said, okay, how do we make this newsletter not crappy now?
Obviously in a newsletter you can have you know discounts or you can have announcements for new products or whatever else
But that's just marketing and I don't see us as a marketing company. I see us as a content company and
the way that we market is by making great content that people want to watch and people want to
You know share in the experiences that we're having and if they see us going like oh, yeah
Gee, that does seem like a really good way to keep your water cold and stay hydrated
They're gonna they're gonna buy the water bottle
they're gonna trust us to do a great job of all the things we do like the way that we the way that we market is
by just
Making quality whatever it is that we do, right? And so I was like, yeah
Look, I just I don't I think it's fine for us to have things like product announcements
But everyone signs up for those newsletters
They do it for whatever incentive there is in the first place whether it's a 10% coupon code or whatever the case
I was on the NCX one and then they immediately stopped looking at them. Oh, I kept looking at it
well, the NCIX one was because you regularly bought computer hardware and the NCX newsletter was just
the price
Sheet it just yeah, it just told you in the price. She was up to yeah
So anyway, the point is like a lot of brand newsletters you sign up for them and then you stop reading them
That's true
And so what Nick and I got together and tried to figure out was what can we do to make our newsletter not boring?
and and the kind of thing that people should actually want to subscribe to and it was like
Eureka
Content it should just be yet another content stream from Linus media group
So guess what? Our newsletter is going to be
There will be product announcements, okay, there will be offers and stuff like that
But most importantly it's gonna be the inside scoop on what we're working on
and so the first one is either has gone out or is about to go out and
I apparently we're calling it the leak. Okay. Well, that's that's pretty cool because
Maybe I guess this is based on how often I leak the LTT store stuff
I'm not sure but the point is hey guys product release notifications and discounts are cool
But they're also boring the goal of our newsletter the the pre-release version of the leak to Imgur. I guess so nice
Yeah, don't worry about it. The goal of our newsletter is to give you all a look behind the scenes
So this is gonna be the first one. You've probably seen the new WAN hoodie
Hey, I'm wearing it in videos from time to time
But we haven't given you a detailed look yet before you ask it's coming soon really really soon
When you're here when they're here
You'll be the first to know and we've got our first kind of detailed images of what the new hoodie is gonna look like
So it's what the store is working on. Yes. It's what creator warehouse is working on then. This is really cool
so this is a lot of stuff will
either
Be a long time or could never even see the light of day, but we work on all kinds of cool stuff
I mean even down to the the systems that we're trying to build for embedding magnets in children's toys
So that we can make the baby's first PC toy. Have you seen that thing? Apparently Hassan watched us talking about that?
Oh, that's hilarious. That's funny sup Hassan. Anyways, sorry. Um, have I seen what sir?
Have you have you seen that like baby's first PC thing?
I have you've been talking to me about this concept for like years, but no hands Jacob has a prototype
Oh near where you say you should go go ask him to see it. It's pretty cool
The point is that it uses magnets to snap all the parts into place so you can build a PC
The problem is that kids toys are really really challenging to make kids safe and magnets are
Extremely dangerous, especially if they are like rare earth make like strong magnets if they're ingested they can rip up your insides
And so what we have been doing is we've been doing a lot of R&D on how to embed magnets in
blocks really safely and that's the kind of thing that we never really had an opportunity to talk about we just
Eventually released the product and we're like, hey, here's a product you can buy it
But there's so much that we learn that we never teach you guys about and I'm looking at it going
Well, this is wasted. This is a wasted opportunity if we're gonna learn this stuff. We might as well talk about it. So
the big one that I was really excited about for this week is the
Jacket that we're working on that uses 3d printed down fabric
3d printed down
What right so natural down fabrics are known for the thermal insulation and their padding and this fabric is no different
It's got our high CLO value
So that describes the degree of insulation provided by a piece of clothing
One CLO is about equal to the amount of clothing required by a resting human to maintain thermal comfort at room temperature
It's relatively breathable and it can be actually laminated with a membrane to make a 100% waterproof and super comfortable jacket
This is super cool. So we've got a close-up of the fabric that was used on a reference sample
We got from our supplier. You can see it looks like a normal woven fabric, but it's actually 3d printed
And then we've got a really early look at what our jacket based on this might end up looking like
Super cool
So we'll use the newsletter as an opportunity to talk about what we're doing behind the scenes probably end up teaching you guys a thing
Or two like we've learned so much about mold flow simulation like plastic molds as we've created the screwdriver
Because it was not as simple as just finding an OEM screwdriver and silkscreening our label onto it
That was not going to fly for us and it's been cool
Has that ever been someone said please do not call it 3d printed down. It would be 3d printed synthetic insulation
How does it work how's 3d printed down I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one
I'm just going based on what the creator warehouse team told me
So I can get back to you on that one
Uh, Nick's probably watching the show. So maybe he'll figure that out and figure it out for the newsletter, huh?
Anyway, the point is we've got probably one more topic for you guys today. You want to talk about the vibe flow?
Yeah, sure. Let's jump to it. Give me one sec
Where's the topic? Okay, so they're more
They they are a significant step forward towards the glasses type stuff
It's a it's a VR headset aimed at the average person and they're looking to make VR more mainstream
It's lightweight 189 grams has a 100 degree FOV 3.2 k resolution 75 Hertz refresh rate speakers and noise and echo cancelling
mics
There's there's a comment saying it could be decent for virtual meetings. I don't think we're there yet
But maybe it's a step in that direction to front-facing cameras to handle inside-out motion tracking
with plans for hand tracking in the future and whatever
It costs $499
The Qualcomm xr1 chipset 64 gigs of storage with no expansion slots
They look trendy 75 Hertz though 75 Hertz
Right, they look trendy. Okay, and they're very light, but they're 75 Hertz, but they're 75 Hertz
All right. See you later. And in Canada, there's
$650
Cool
Yeah time for super chats. Hey, oh
Man, oh you guys send too many super chats
You guys are gonna have to dial it back and stop sending so many super chats cuz I really can't read them all
I'd like need to get home at the end of the show. So
Hey
1218 says I paid MSRP for my PlayStation 5 got an email from Sony inviting me to buy one just had to sign in with
My account got it in four days. Yeah, not bad
Nostalgia
Nostalgia trip says when an official source starts to price increase its anarchy
The wild card at the end of the day increases the price for normal people not that the scalpers would care
They make the same regardless when official
I'm actually not quite sure what you're talking about. It's anarchy. Okay, Akyarook Savage says devil's advocate for Best Buy
This will likely help prevent scalping as well. I worked store pickups
Ps5s went the state to the same two to three people every shipment
They have rules saying you can only buy two so you'll have to buy a subscription for each order. Oh, that's interesting
Because you would need a new subscription. Yeah, you could do that rule without charging 200 bucks a year
You knew it was the same people picking it up every time that is the worst. No, I do not accept that at all
I'm sorry, dude. That's not okay
That is so ridiculous. Like the the comment that just came up like oh, I just had to sign in with my account
It's like yeah, just go to Sony's wet. Like this is how it should work. Just go to Sony's website
Yes, make a PSN account like we were talking about how memberships are okay. It's a membership whatever
You don't even have to pay for it and then it just works that way they could even make it so you have to
It's like login with PSN or something to show it like at the store. I don't care how it works. But like this
Well at any rate
Spaceman are there any cosmetic ways we can pimp out our PCs might be a fun thing to do in the chip shortage for a
lot less
We kind of tried that with tech showdown. You guys didn't really like it because we're not very good at it. It was fun
Ben s says retailer websites should sell hot items using a silent offer system
I actually strongly disagree with that. We have a silent offer system for real estate in Canada and has caused a lot of big problems
Yeah, Mike Slovak says I wonder if this is the some kind of situation where the shipping companies and manufacturing plants are taking the highest
Profit margin which is in turn rating the MSRP
Shipping costs are going up
but I can tell you right now that manufacturing plants are probably not the largest contributor because usually they are contractually bound to
whatever whatever cost they've agreed on with the with the brand be it Sony or Microsoft or whatever the case may be
All right
Armand says could you give some insight into why retailers don't offer back orders?
So yeah, I can
LTT store doesn't offer back orders because I don't want to deal with it
It's well, honestly it generates so many more complaints than it does happy customers
Yeah, we just do the the back-end stock notifications
yeah, as soon as you take someone's money, they're your customer and now they're always right and
When they say I should have it now
They're right, except I don't have it. So I can't give it to you. I can't give it to you
Yeah, there's nothing I can do and so for me, you know, Nick and I have gone back and forth about this a lot
He is far more in support of back orders than I am
but I've pushed back hard every time because we've seen situations where he and I both almost
Pulled the trigger on allowing pre-ordering or back-ordering lakes say for example, the shipment was in the port in Vancouver
We're like, okay, let's just let's just turn it on and say it'll ship out in a week
Boom delays in the port
It takes two to three weeks to hit us or it's in customs or whatever and we're like who dodged a bullet
because you do not want and we're at the scale now where we could launch a product and we could have
Literally thousands of people pre-order or backward right? Yeah, you do not want
Thousands of support tickets how many people like still have their receipts or not anymore?
I guess but remember the Duke Nukem forever or whatever
People had receipts that were like, yeah nine years old
They were yellow and you could barely tell what it was for and wonder like all this junk
It's just like no dude, just take the money when you have the product
Gar woody says love the show. I watch from the UK. Would you consider a video about PCI e-lanes?
I believe we've done that before on the tech quickie channel
PCI e-lanes. Let's have a look here
Yep, the sneaky thing about PCI Express CPU versus chipset. So we kind of explain how
How the lanes are connected within your computer?
Thanks, Anthony Nanya
Jordan says as borders open up
I know that ltx is gonna be on your minds our ticket buyers from 2020 going to be invited to access the next ltx early
That's a really great question and I have no idea
How we're going to tackle that it seems like it's one of those that would be the right thing to do things
But the logistics of it may end up being too complicated
I don't think we're gonna have limited ticket availability though for certain classes of ticket like a VIP we will
But for general admission, I think we we're gonna be in the Convention Center next time we do it
So we should be able to accept as many people as want to come up and do IOC land
It's probably also gonna be limited but what we're gonna have to see how it goes. Sorry. We're gonna play that by ear
There's a comment in float plane. Yeah, it says
I feel like there was a technical inaccuracy with the Monoprice
Displayport cable it's an active cable that won't function correctly with the tester the tester only works on passive cables
That Monoprice cable to my knowledge is not an active cable. I don't know just reading comment
Yeah, you that that DisplayPort cable. Yeah. No, it's just a thick old copper cable. Sorry capes. I don't think so
It's a really old one. Maybe Monoprice is long display ports are active now. I don't believe that older one was though
Okay
What was I looking at here
Brad says I love how open LTT is about sponsors and
Finances to that end does secret labs pay for having their chairs on the wen show and if not why I?
Don't know if they do
I I could certainly ask
If they do it's probably not that much
I
When shows kind of like we do and show because we love hand show
It's not the most profitable thing we do to be clear
we're not we're not losing money by any stretch of the imagination especially because of
great sponsors like LG today as well as
Fresh books and tux care like that that makes when show makes sense
But just you know how much we would charge to like have a chair back there
I suspect it's not very much then again. Maybe maybe it's a lot. I I just legitimately don't know. Thanks Matt Hedgecock
And I think that's pretty much the end of it
Yep, yeah, all right
Hey, thanks shifter 999
Yeah Stewart, this is a really important topic
I have something Disney has not been paying some authors
For several properties like Star Wars formerly owned by Lucasfilm and Fox check out the hashtag Disney must pay
Yeah
If anyone was wondering if Disney is an unscrupulous company
If you were somehow still wondering for like ever by the way, yeah, if you were wondering that
Do check out hashtag Disney must pay its atrocious. It's it's actually horrible
um
Yeah, I mean between that and the meager
Credit and payments that the writers responsible for the storylines and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are getting between that and that
It's yeah, it's
It's just not a question of whether Disney is unscrupulous or not
It looks update Linux update. Uh, you guys are just gonna have to wait for the video. I got to get home and relieve my childcare
Okay, okay
Bye guys. Bye
Eckhart's ladder covers apparently the Disney stuff
Oh, I got this
And oh geez oh geez oh geez Rick
How is this happening? I don't know what I'm saying.