Why does it take so long these days?
Not even live yet.
There we go.
Takes forever.
We should probably restart this computer sometime this month or century or I don't know but
sometime around there.
Welcome to the Wan Show everyone.
Linus is not here this week as you guys know because he's away on a vacation where he's
cleaning his house the whole week so that's super exciting.
We have some really interesting news.
Google Stadia, we will probably talk about that for, oh, oh hi.
I'm going to go the opposite and be super up right now.
Google Stadia, the future of gaming, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about that.
What else?
We've got Samsung Galaxy Fold creases, that's kind of brutal.
Increasingly obvious.
And the Epic Game Store is such a big deal that Steam is redesigning their interface
to not look like dinosaur bones.
Wow.
Wild.
It's looked the same since I was born, so.
Roll the intro.
Yeah.
I almost thought I was going to fall.
Did you almost die?
My legs caught me.
Oh, nice.
I clenched hard enough.
I don't know, it feels good to do a nosho.
A nosh, it's been a while, this is the last time you're up.
Ages.
Ages ago.
Savage Jerky.
Savage Jerky and Madeline and Squash Bash.
How many sponsors?
So many.
There we go.
Yeah, man.
Hold on, does this work?
Someone screwed with the scenes a little bit.
That does work though.
Yeah, I haven't been on the WAN Show since like when you were working at your house more
than here.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you wouldn't be in, oh wait, no.
I don't know.
I'm going to be there on Fridays.
Well, it's been a while.
So, Floatplane starts at like 8am, which is insane for me, but I'm trying to make it work.
So then, Jayden, the only guy who's currently local, likes starting at 8am because then
he's done work relatively early in the day.
Sounds good to me.
So, on Fridays, when I have to do WAN Show, I usually want to start a little later because
I'm going to have to do WAN Show anyways, so then he just stays at home.
So I just stay at home.
But then I still have to start early because we have weekly meetings on Fridays.
And people are in different time zones.
Yeah.
So, whatever.
It works out.
It's fine.
But anyways, should we just jump right into Stadia?
Yeah.
Because I think this might take a bit.
There's elements to this.
There's, yeah.
Have you heard of Google Stadia, guys?
It was announced this week at the Game Developers Conference.
It's a streaming, it's a game streaming platform by Google.
It doesn't suck as much as the ones of the past.
Give it a chance.
Hear us out.
It might actually be awesome.
Although I have heard, I don't know enough about this.
Okay.
And I think you're going to be notably more informed than I am.
I hope not.
But I have heard that there's huge input lag compared to traditional gaming.
Not compared to other cloud services, but compared to traditional games.
Well, I read the hands-on experience that they had at Digital Foundry.
They played with a beta one a few months ago, and then they played with the new one this
week.
And they said, well, they give you some numbers actually at source three in the document.
Okay.
There's a table halfway down, and it looks like it's comparable to console gaming.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they were playing, what they were playing was an Assassin's Creed game.
And they were playing at 1080p, 30 frames a second.
So had it been 60 frames a second, 60 FPS, then it could have actually had lower latency
than when you're playing on the Xbox.
But there's a bunch of little caveats in the article.
You know, like they're using a wifi connection that's probably bonkers.
They can't account for the...
Why are they using a wifi connection?
They didn't have control over where they got to play it.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was that Google's own thing, I think.
So it looks like latency, including display lag for Google Stadia, well, Google Stadia
latency seems to be 166, regardless.
Google Stadia on 15 megabit per second seems to be 188 milliseconds, regardless.
That's supposed to be like a worst case scenario one, I think, according to Google.
It did say there's asterisks on the latency not including display lag for both of Google's.
The first asterisk says the Stadia tests were carried out at a Google connection, on a Google
connection versus our stream tests in the wild on a 200 megabit per second connection.
However, the Stadia tests included display latency on a Pixelbook, which we cannot measure,
and were carried out via wifi networking.
It's a really weird setup.
But I guess it's part of their point of like you can do it anywhere on any device.
Yeah, but it's just hard because they only have one data point right now.
They only got to play one game in this one setup.
Well, I guess they have two data points.
They got to play an earlier version of the game before.
But it wasn't on like the final kind of ecosystem of hardware stacks.
Are you saying this testing was done by Digital Foundries?
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, because it's on Eurogamer, so I just wasn't sure.
But Digital Foundries, if they only have one data point, they're not going to be happy
with that.
So I'm sure we'll see more coverage from them eventually.
It does look, as one would probably suspect, the input lag on PC, especially above 30 FPS
is much lower.
But this is how it's going to start off.
It's like a disruptive technology in the formal sense, in the actual definition of the word
where gamers today are, what's possible with good gaming hardware is way over serving what's
necessary for a lot of gamers.
And all Stadia needs to do is compete with that point.
It only needs to be good enough for a lot of people.
It doesn't have to be better than the top of the top.
And eventually, once people start using it and the technology matures, it'll edge closer
and closer until it's just, there's just no reason, no practical reason to game the way
that we game today.
One really interesting thing to me is Google Stadia's with display lag and without display
lag is the same as Xbox One X with display lag included, which is like, you have to include
display lag, so whatever.
But that's going to depend on what display and it looks like that display had a notable
amount of lag, but still you're getting extremely close, if not tied to an Xbox One X.
Yeah, what they said in their articles that the person reviewing it was very familiar
with the Xbox version of this Assassin's Creed title and they didn't have any like based
on muscle memory feeling of like, oh, this sucks.
It seemed really similar for them.
So what did you read where the latency was awful?
Well, I read 166 and I'm a snob who games at high fresh rates and to me on PC with a
ridiculous computer and a ridiculous monitor, I'm like, that is far too slow for me.
But looking at these numbers, especially if you're coming from console, that actually
sounds pretty damn good.
There's so many aspects of this that are so different and cool that I'm excited about.
I think it's pretty wild because I have always hated the idea of like powerful GPUs and laptops.
I've basically always hated that as like something that I would purchase on my own.
Why?
Because you think it's just like totally negates the whole reason to have a laptop?
Pretty much.
Like, wow, why don't I just carry around this 25 pound fricking brick with two external
power.
Two external power supplies.
It's a million pounds.
They're usually way too thick.
They get wicked hot.
They're just kind of ridiculous.
And then the external docks came out and I was like, that's a really cool solution.
I like that, but it's still a little clunky and it never, well, it's not really portable
then.
Yeah.
You're talking about a GPU enclosure.
Yeah.
That's good for, I don't know.
Well, it's good for having a desk doc where you come in, Hey, now I'm at home.
Nice that you could at least like reduce some devices and still have a gaming machine and
like whatever else.
It was like kind of a cool option, but it didn't solve all the problems.
And they're really expensive.
They're really expensive.
It doesn't solve the portability problem.
There's still some other issues with this.
You could game on your phone.
You can have a pixel book.
Like they said, Android devices, it enables a lot of different options, which is super
cool.
I'm still, I have like my own opinion, problem things with this from a technical standpoint.
I think it's freaking fantastic.
Super cool.
I'm really interested to see where it goes from that aspect.
I don't even like the idea of purely digital games with our current setup.
Oh man, there's so many angles to cover here.
So like the idea of removing that much more from you is a little crazy.
You mean from like an ownership perspective?
Yes.
Yeah.
Cause like I always hated the idea of like Origin has a thing now, I don't remember what
it's called, but you pay for like a year at a time and you get access to basically all
games on Origin.
All of EA's games on Origin.
Until you don't re-up.
Until you don't re-up.
And then they just turn the tap off.
And you lose all of them.
And that just seems completely insane to me.
I don't know.
I hate that.
It's subscribing versus buying.
It's renting.
Really, you're leasing it.
Origin access.
Yeah.
Do you think this is a generational opinion?
Well.
Do you think kids who grow up in this subscription model world are, they don't care and you've
got like an old school opinion?
I think they might be more used to it because of, we're going to get real deep right here
real quick.
But I think.
Tell me about your mother.
Your relationship.
How did your mom and dad meet?
No, our generation and below is having an extremely hard time owning anything.
Whether there's things in place stopping us from owning things.
Are you talking about real estate now?
Real estate, cars, almost anything.
It has become way more difficult for our generation to own things.
And things have come in to help us deal with not owning things.
And if you just have to pay for a subscription, that one time per year cost is probably going
to be a lot easier to.
It's really interesting how all of these different dimensions converge.
You've got the economic realities of being a millennial or Gen Z.
You've got the new business models that totally enable.
You've got the consumer culture, the sense of entitlement, the convenience culture of
wanting things right now.
And they all kind of just work together to make this perfect storm of where we're headed
to.
It gets way freaking deeper.
Yeah.
But it's not just Google Stadia.
That's the problem.
It's like now we're talking about the human condition of now.
And I was kind of nuts.
Let's start talking about the positives of gaming streaming.
It's really cool that it enables you to do stuff.
I love the idea that I could play Civ on my phone.
And that's wicked.
And you can play Civ on a Switch, but it's not the full game.
So being able to play Civ on my phone is pretty sick.
This might legitimately enable a wider range of devices.
Do you know how many games?
That's going to be up to developers to decide or allow you to play it all these different
ways.
Is it true that there could be a game on Stadia where I can only play this on my laptop or
TV?
I can't pick this up on my phone?
Or is it going to be a requirement that they have to be on all of them?
I have no clue, personally.
I wouldn't be surprised if developers were able to restrict you to some degree because
they don't want people to have outwardly negative experiences.
Because you try to play a highly complicated game that requires a huge amount of variable
inputs and can't be done on console because you need a keyboard.
And why would Google want that?
Why would Google want to be like, your game doesn't fit our mold so you can't be on our
store?
They want to build up their library.
Isn't it like a Linux kernel?
Games have to be built or ported specially to it, right?
Yeah, but I'm sure people are going to want to be on Google Stadia and we'll make their
things work.
What do you think about the fact that it's 10.7 teraflops or something like that?
Their hardware stack, which is powered by AMD, is as powerful as a PS4 Pro and an Xbox
One X combined.
Does that mean much when you're game streaming?
Well yeah, because you're not going to want...
It does mean a lot because even on consoles right now, you have dips, which like, why
can't I remember the name of them right now?
They're the people who ran the tests for this.
Digital Foundry?
Digital Foundry.
Digital Foundry has done tons of different tests on like, graphical dips in different
console games and PC games and whatever.
Just hitching when a new region loads or something like that.
It's actually super interesting.
Digital Foundry channel is fantastic.
You can check them out on YouTube.
We've been saying them a lot so we might as well give them a shout out.
I didn't know that.
A YouTube channel.
Yeah.
I only read their print stuff.
This dude.
He hosts it.
Let's see.
One second.
So, because I would think that the bottleneck really is going to be your internet connection.
Because it's capable of 4K 60, but then if you only have, I think, 25 megabits a second
then you're going to be down to 1080 probably, and if you only have like 15 megabits a second
then you're going to get scaled down further to 720 at like 30 FPS.
There you go.
Digital Foundry YouTube channel.
There they are.
There's some really, see, unsurprising Google Stadia specs analysis and exclusive performance
testing.
I haven't watched this yet.
I should.
I will.
Sounds good.
Yeah, that'll be cool.
But yeah, they do tons of really cool stuff.
Different dives into performance of different consoles, different games, et cetera, et cetera.
But I think-
Plus, that's a cool name.
Digital Foundry?
Yeah.
It's pretty cool.
I like it.
I think it's going to be important so that people can't criticize it as much.
It's a new, very different emerging technology type of thing.
So a lot of people are going to come out of the woodwork like me and try it and try to
look for any possible thing that they can go after to tear it down, because it sounds
fantabular right now, so you're trying to find any negative thing about it.
So if they can just crush the performance and make it so you're getting whatever frames
they decide you're getting for that game at this latency all the time, and it's going
to be good all the time, and even crazy things happening in the game isn't going to worsen
your experience, I think the communication around it will be really good.
In some ways, the optics and the negativity around it from existing gamers doesn't matter
a whole lot, because again, it's generational, where there's probably, I don't know the numbers,
but I would guess that there's probably more people watching games than playing games.
There's probably more people watching Twitch streams around the world than gaming in general,
and I would think that this technology is going to create a whole new wave of gamers.
Gaming will be bigger than ever.
If you are, like I could imagine walking into my living room if I have Google Stadia and
my wife's playing video games.
It's just so much more accessible, and I don't need all this hardware, it'll be so much cheaper.
Well, okay, here's another weird angle at it, talking about different generations and
stuff like that.
If we move out of North America, there's the whole PewDiePie versus T-Series things.
India is coming online at an incredibly faster rate than before.
If the devices that they have are a phone, or a fairly low-end computer or something
like that, because they're just coming online for the first time, this, if they can afford
it, and maybe a lot of different pricing per region or something, I don't know, is probably
a way easier way to get into gaming than buying a gaming rig or buying a console and getting
the multiple controllers.
For at least three reasons.
Simplicity, you don't have to buy all that stuff.
You don't have to know about what you need to buy, especially in PC.
No one knows, what do I need to buy?
How much do I need to spend to play this game?
Consoles make that a lot easier, but it's still an upfront investment, which is reason
number two.
You have $500 at a time.
With this, they haven't done any pricing announcements at all, but I assume it's going to be something
similar to either a Netflix model, where you're just a subscription, or they could do it like
they do with the Google movies, where I'm going to pay $7 this month, or I'm going to
pay $7 to rent this game for two days or something, just with that little amount of money you
can play.
You don't even need to use their controller.
And then the next reason, there's another one, it'll come back to me, getting older
here.
While you're thinking about that, I do think some people in chat are bringing this up,
saying more people play this game at one time than are all on Twitch.
I think he's saying there are more people that have watched games.
Basically there's just a whole ton of people that watch games and don't necessarily game.
It's not an insignificant amount of people.
And there's a lot of people, even that I know, that watch a significant amount of games and
play a small amount of games.
That doesn't mean there isn't a huge base of people that just play games all the time
and don't watch them.
Even forgetting that comparison, what I'm saying is I think that there are a lot more
people in the world who could be gaming that aren't.
And this will get them in.
Oh yeah, the next reason was accessibility.
They have integrated this with YouTube, so whenever you're playing, a stream that's 4K60
gets created.
You can hit this button on the dedicated controller if you happen to use it, but you don't have
to.
Yeah, you can use any current controller, keyboard, mouse, whatever setup you want.
Unless you're playing on the Chromecast, in which case you need to have their controller.
Anyway, it's got a capture button on it, so you can start a stream, you can start streaming.
And when you're on YouTube and you're watching someone stream, or even if you're just watching
a trailer for a game on YouTube, there's going to be a button that says play.
You can tap that button on your Android device or whatever, and apparently within as little
as five seconds, you can be playing the game.
That is crazy.
If you're just on your computer, you're on your MacBook, you've never played a game in
your life, and you're like, hey, what's this button do, and then suddenly you're just gaming
on a Mac.
That's crazy.
You're watching this trailer and you're like, this looks amazing.
You press play and you're like, it looks like junk.
Plus, log in, sign in, sign out, all that crap.
But it's a pretty cool premise.
Another thing you can do is this, what's the actual name of this feature they've got?
Crowdshare I think?
Yeah, something like that.
They have something where you can crowd play.
So you can be watching a creator or a gamer streaming, and you can actually say, oh, I
want to join their game and join the queue if there's a queue, or if you're watching
a nobody, you can just jump in and game with them.
Oof.
Hey, I'm one of those nobodies.
Do you stream?
No.
Oh, okay.
I'm one of those people that has no anythings on my first stream.
If anyone happens to watch and goes, oh, I want to play with James, they can.
That's so cool.
Nice.
They have another thing called State Share.
I think most people that have been streaming for a while would not want that feature.
They have all sorts of tools.
People probably turn it off.
Yeah, yeah.
They have another thing called State Share, which is, yeah, you can just save your state
in the game.
Like I'm right here with these items.
You can send a link.
And so someone just clicked that link, and then the game loads up, and they're like right
where you are, and you can be like, try to beat my time.
Or can you beat this?
Can you pass this puzzle?
That's super cool.
That is actually pretty cool.
A lot of people are bringing up as well that like, oh, internet's going to be a big problem.
I think in a lot of areas it will be, and a lot of areas it won't be.
The internet's a big problem thing, I would assume, is going to mostly come from people
who reside in the United States of America, because you all have horrible internet.
I've had a better time getting internet in Canada, which is bigger, and has way less
people than a lot of people that I know in the States.
It's wild.
There are places in the States where it's fantastic.
There's amazing places in the States for internet.
There's also tons and tons and tons of terrible places in the States.
Australia's horrible.
There are places that are really bad, but there's also places that are absolutely fantastic.
Hopefully things like data caps will eventually disappear, because they're just exploitive
as far as I can tell.
That's pretty much it.
Hopefully internet connections in general will get better.
If you want to look at how ridiculous internet is in the States, I don't remember all the
details and I don't remember what it's called, but at one point in time the US government
gave a whole whack ton of money to ISPs to set up a fiber backbone, and then they just
didn't.
Pretty wonderful.
Kind of funny how that worked out.
In some places it's great.
In some places it's terrible.
Stadia will probably be a little bit better in the places that it is good.
But if I remember correctly, it's 25 megabit per second, right?
For a minimum?
Yeah.
I think you can go lower than that.
Okay.
I think you can go to 15 and have 720.
15 to 25 megabit per second, though?
I think quite a bit of people can get that.
I'm starting to think about just small businesses and emerging markets.
If you go to Philippines or something like that, or Thailand, there's internet cafes.
PC Bong.
Exactly.
There's internet cafes with desktop computers.
With this, they either won't have to provide any machines or they'll just provide basic
Chromebooks, and as long as they have good internet, you've got a PC Bong.
It makes the cost of hosting that place a lot lower.
You just need a bunch of ethernet cables sticking out.
Yeah.
That's kind of cool.
Let's see.
Let's go to Shaw.
What is Shaw's basic plan?
I don't know.
I'd like to know, actually.
Lately I've been thinking I should get gigabit, maybe.
I don't think they have gigabit.
Oh, you've got to go to Novaris or something, is that what they're called?
No, I just want to see.
I'm going for if your mom and dad don't care about the internet, and you want to play Stadia.
Is that called light speed?
I don't even know.
Really?
Internet 75.
75 is as low as you can go on Shaw.
Wow.
I kind of think most people are going to be okay.
It's still 50 bucks, 65 bucks a month.
Kind of nuts.
Man, I remember it used to be 30.
Now it's like 120 for the good stuff.
Wow.
Hey, what about the controller?
Have you seen the controller?
I have.
Have you been interested in it?
I hate it.
What do you think?
Absolutely hate it.
The look, you mean?
I will hate using it.
How do you know?
I hate PlayStation controllers.
I wish they would have put the thumb stick up by the keypad.
Right?
Why?
That is my only problem.
I agree.
Stop.
I don't know why they did that.
Maybe it would look too much like an Xbox controller.
I have fairly large hands, and I have no idea how people with fairly large hands place their
hands on PlayStation controllers properly, because with an Xbox controller I can offset
both hands a little bit, and it works.
I don't like controllers in general.
I liked the Duke controller, which everyone hates because it's way too big.
Everyone in my family, my dad, my brother, and me all love the Duke controller.
Really?
But the buttons are pretty close together on the Duke.
They're not spaced like those ones.
That's fair, but I liked how you grip it and where the thumb sticks are.
This is good information for me because I think we're going to do a video on the Duke.
Nice.
Yeah.
I don't have one anymore.
There's a new one, though.
You can get it.
We'll find one.
Really?
Yeah.
There's a new Duke controller.
New.
That would have been awesome.
I think they made it as a semi-joke, semi-you can buy it to remember the past kind of thing.
I don't think it was a huge problem.
Yeah, because we made that video, was Windows Vista really that bad?
We're thinking about doing other things like that.
Was the Duke controller really that bad?
I think the Duke controller was a bad idea, because I think they were what they ended
up aiming for, whether they meant to or not, was a very small group of people.
Bad show.
The new Xbox 360 controllers are great.
They're the best.
I love Xbox 360.
Okay.
This looks kind of Mickey Mouse, especially if you look at the D-pad, it looks kind of
mushy.
It does.
But in this article, it said it felt very Xbox-y, says it feels good.
Google makes okay hardware.
You're using it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm a little bit worried about how... Okay, I'm a little bit worried, because controllers
are actually relatively hard.
But knowing Google, I'm going to assume their material stuff will be pretty good, and I'm
assuming their thumbsticks and their buttons and their D-pad and whatnot will all be pretty
good.
I don't suspect they're going to be the best.
I don't think they're going to be terrible, though.
If people have been watching the channel for a long time, they've seen me pitch a controller
to Linus while he hits it with a bat.
We've had some pretty negative experiences with controllers.
I don't expect we'll have that here.
The one thing I'm going to hate is those damn thumbsticks.
Yeah, me too.
I've always been into the staggered thumbsticks.
To me, it seems objectively more ergonomic.
Your hand wants to be like this.
It doesn't want to be like that.
I have seen people where it looks like it worked really well for them.
For me, I just look like a crazy alien trying to hold the damn place in control.
Good lord.
What do you think about this other special button we haven't talked about, the Google
Assistant button?
Apparently, when you're stuck at a part in a game, you can hold it down and be like,
I need help.
We don't know what it does, but it does something.
This is like the Nintendo insider program, whatever that was called, where you could
call in to get help.
We're going back to the late 80s.
If I have to guess, I think it looks like some sort of metadata timestamp of where you
are in the game, and will bring up other people's streams where they're at the same spot, so
you can just watch them.
They would be able to tell because their progression data would go forward, so they would know
that they beat that section.
It's integrated with YouTube, again, and the Assistant.
Interesting.
They'd have to find... Interesting.
It would be so funny if the most viewed clip at that part of the game was some kind of
troll hilarious viral clip, like a Leroy Jenkins kind of clip.
You ask for help, and you get Leroy Jenkins, and you're like, God damn it.
That's hilarious.
How do you censor... Because there's the game that you could be playing, which might
be M-rated or something, so you have to be whatever age already.
What if you are playing that game, but you really don't like swear words, or you really
don't like conversations about a specific topic, and that streamer happens to be saying
something at that time, and it brings you to that stream.
What?
They're going to have to find non-firmature audience streamers?
Maybe they'll just use the thumbs up and down, or you can report that, and they won't use
anything that got flagged.
Yeah.
I just... With what YouTube's algorithm has been doing for the last while, in terms of
flagging people and stuff, I don't know how much I trust that, but that's interesting,
though.
I think that's kind of... It would be even cooler if they tracked how many times you
used it in the game.
Why?
Just so that you have that like... You get a...
I could, but...
Oh, like a completionist angle?
Am I kind of a loser if I do it?
Oh, you definitely are.
Right?
It's like...
But it's sitting right there.
You've been stuck on this boss for 45 minutes.
You could just press the button, and it's just like... I think it would... Yeah, I
don't know.
I think it would be kind of cool.
You get an achievement unlocked for beating it without...
No button.
No assistant.
No Google Assistant.
You didn't use this tech that we made.
Good job.
I don't expect they'd do it, but I think that would be cool.
You just hold it down and just order pizza while you're playing.
So what, there's...
Send a text.
I assume it has the power of the assistant, like full on, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's Stadia Home button, I'm assuming, in the middle.
Charge.
Yeah, because there is a UI that you can use rather than using voice, so maybe that's what
does that.
It probably turns on the controller as well.
Well, and I'm assuming that brings you to like game selection and whatever else.
Well, what are these other two buttons on the top then?
So I'm thinking Stadia Home, screenshot.
That's the capture button.
Yeah, capture, screenshot, whatever.
Or start streaming.
Streaming.
Yeah, okay.
Multimedia of some thing.
Oh wait, is it just streaming for sure?
That's kind of funky to have a start stream button on your controller.
I would assume that it's a option of either a screenshot or a stream.
Then Google Help, I'm assuming settings and like...
Dot, dot, dot, and then the hamburger menu thing.
Yeah.
Which I'm assuming are just developer programmable buttons, essentially.
Start and select to some degree.
Yeah, I guess so.
And then how many shoulder buttons do you think it has?
There are other images.
You can Google image it.
I've seen other angles, so we might be able to see if it has just two bumpers or if it's
got triggers too.
I just want to control what images come up.
I think it'll be fine, but you never know.
Side.
What about that one?
Looks like two.
Yeah.
You can tell on that.
Yeah, sweet.
It looks more... The paddles look more Xbox-y from that angle.
There's a big flick on the bottom of the trigger.
You see that?
Oh, like underneath your hand to hold under your finger there?
No, like the... Yeah, yeah, under your finger, yeah.
This is the controller.
This is my finger.
Yeah.
And it's got Wi-Fi built in, hey?
So when you're doing it with Chromecast, the controller itself is what's connecting to
the Google servers, so I guess that's the lowest latency way to do it.
I want to pull the audience here really quick, because the non-offset thumbsticks drive me
absolutely bonkers.
You want to see who's on your team?
But I'm wondering if they made the right decision.
PlayStation fanboys.
Maybe for most people it's better.
Get in here, assemble... What would you call the PlayStation style?
Or should I just do Xbox style versus PlayStation style?
Awesome.
Aligned?
But I don't want it to be fanboys.
Aligned.
Planar?
I felt like putting KB mod in there, but I don't want to screw the pole too much.
I wonder though, because even on the Switch Pro controller, the buttons kind of suck.
To your point about controllers being hard.
Controllers are hard.
Controllers are really hard.
Like the lab at Microsoft, I don't remember exactly what it's called, where they bring
in tons of people, take 360 degree photos of them, take exact scans of their hands,
have them try controllers, do extensive ergonomic testing on controllers and stuff.
Microsoft is crazy about this stuff.
That tour you did when you saw their hardware stuff for the Surface stuff?
Yeah.
It's wild.
It's a whole, fairly sizable and very well-funded team, as far as I can tell, dedicated to just
the ergonomics of different things that they make, and they still make mistakes sometimes.
Wow.
And those guys are crazy, as far as I can tell.
Wow.
Sorry, YouTube, I don't have you guys open on this screen, so I can't share the straw
pole thing to you.
Hopefully someone watching will go over and post it on YouTube.
Yeah.
Imagine it just comes out 50-50.
We need those YouTube votes.
We do.
It's strawpole.me slash 17660701.
There you go.
Wow.
Let's see what the current results are.
I'm going to press the results button with the stream.
What do you think they're going to price that controller at?
Results?
Wow, it is pretty close.
But offset is winning!
Yes!
85.
I wonder if that's a PC thing.
It's very close, though.
It is legitimately... and votes are pouring in, but it's mostly staying at where it's
at.
Whoa, they just stopped.
They were pouring in.
Do I need a refresh?
Wow.
I mean, you want to make it not a fanboy thing, but I'm pretty sure it's a fanboy thing.
Probably.
Like, if you were raised PlayStation, that's what you're going to like.
Although, mind you, I had a PS1, including the DualShock, with those thumbsticks, a few
years.
Then I had Xbox from then on.
So I did experience both, but I loved the Xbox design.
As soon as they came out with the controller S. The Duke, no.
When I got my Xbox, the S was already out.
Okay, yeah.
It was that Christmas.
Yeah.
So...
I... almost all my experiences was Nintendo, except my cousins had a PlayStation.
So all my adult console playing, not that I think Nintendo isn't, but I think you know
what I mean, was on a PlayStation.
And then we got our own Xbox, and I was immediately like, holy crap, this controller's way better.
Yeah.
It was an immediate thing.
It wasn't like, oh, I'm more used to this one now.
It was like, I knew the whole time I was playing PlayStation, I didn't like that controller.
And when I pick up a PlayStation one now, I'm like, eh.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Eh.
But maybe the PlayStation people feel like that when they pick up a offset.
Maybe, yeah.
It is quite close.
I am surprised.
This is kind of...
Oh, it's 60-40 now.
This is kind of... it's still pretty close.
All right.
Maybe what I expected was offset was going to win, but not by a ton.
And I wonder, did Google even bother trying to check this out?
Or maybe they got different results from us.
Maybe it's a problem because we are a more PC-focused community.
Why did they come?
Maybe it's a problem because we're probably a more Western community right now, especially
due to the time slot of the WAN show.
Maybe this will change after the VOD goes up and people in different time zones see
it.
Because when Japan comes online, right, the poll will probably change a little bit.
But why did they come to that conclusion that it's just so weird?
I don't know.
We should probably do some spots here.
Right.
That makes sense.
We have to talk about something that isn't Stadia for some amount of time on the show.
Savage Jerky Moho.
The Jerky is made with the best ingredients, without nitrates or preservatives, with the
goal to create a snack that is full of flavor and spice that isn't bad for you.
And it's handmade.
Pretty cool.
One of their flavors that they're trying to promote right now is Moho Premium Jerky.
It is my second favorite flavor.
What does Moho mean?
Garlic, lime, and cilantro?
Yeah.
Pretty much.
Oh hell yeah.
Oh!
That was a scratch.
It's a very like, kind of fresh, citrusy kind of, I don't know.
Are you a cilantro guy?
Yes.
Little bias.
Are you?
You're not?
Absolutely.
You should acknowledge there's a certain percentage of the population.
No, it's true.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I wonder if they would object to this.
Do a pull!
You get cilantro.
My actual favorite flavor is very heavily related.
It's Moho jalapeno.
Is that just hot version of this or is it kind of a different flavor profile?
I actually don't know the exact ingredients involved, but I think it's pretty similar
plus jalapenos.
Hmm.
But yeah, if you're not into that, they have tons of other great flavors as well.
So, oh, and also cumin, apparently, in that one.
Oh, in here?
Yeah.
Right now, if you buy any three bags of Moho jerky, I think there's a few different kinds,
they'll throw in another bag of Moho for free.
Check it out at lmg.com slash savage moho.
What?
Which is not the lower third we have right now at all.
Savage moho.
Go to this down here and go to lmg.com slash savage moho.
Moho is spelled M-O-J-O.
Buy three, get one, Boto.
Next up, we got Madrinas.
Wait, it's not Boto, it's B-T, okay.
Madrinas!
Madrinas coffee.
Heck yeah.
Oh, these are cold this week.
Would you like to steal one, sir?
Oh, no, thanks, I'm alright.
He's good.
He doesn't want to steal one.
He wants one.
He was just shy, he didn't want to be on camera.
Oh, do I want one?
Madrinas!
Madrinas coffee.
You could.
I have many different flavors.
I have braces now.
Oh.
I don't want to derail this, but I would have to take them out too.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Madrinas coffee is coffee for fuel.
Organic cold brew coffee in convenient 15 ounce cans with a flavor for everyone.
Madrinas coffee offers sweet and creamy flavors like mocha or caramel or bold flavors like
their cold brew black.
We have a permanent item on their e-store, the Lambo Roast right here.
Check it out.
This is Tech Tips inspired coffee.
There's also, if you don't love us as much, which is like I'm heavily offended now, but
they have other influencer related ones as well.
I think they have like an insane one that's for Shroud.
Oh yeah, that's cool.
And I think they've got some other ones too, but you should get the Lambo Roast.
I thought you were going to talk about the roast.
Oh.
The roast of Linus.
That's also coming.
If you hate us, watch the roast of Linus where we all make fun of each other very savagely.
You know, I'll say this before the thing.
There's a lot of really, really, really easy things to make fun of Linus for.
There's not a ton of more complicated ones.
And most of the really easy things are like kind of low brow.
Well, that gets to the question of how savage do you want to be?
That's fair.
You know, you want to talk about like business acumen or like how you raise your kids.
If you make fun of his sandals, everyone can walk away happy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's boring.
These sandals are pretty funny.
It is actually pretty great.
It makes it really easy to pick up.
Anyways, head over to madrinascoffee.com slash Linus to receive 50% off your entire order.
Holy crap.
With offer code Linus for only up to 72 hours and the first 50 people to use the code will
also get a free bag of micro roast.
Madrinus' codes and offers are always ridiculous.
If you have any questions about the various flavors of cold brew coffee or micro roast,
Shlomo from Madrinus coffee head team is in the chat ready to answer any questions through
direct messages.
Hit him up.
He's always here.
Hey, Shlomo, how's your arenas?
Is it mad?
Oh, good one.
10 out of 10 Squarespace 24 seven live chat support and email only 12 bucks a month and
you get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for a year, they have responsive design so
that your website looks great on any device at any time.
They have commerce modules so you can sell some stuff through their store if you'd like.
They have a cover page feature so if you want to have like a one page resume that's all
nice and scrollable, you can use that.
It makes it, that's from a different point.
Not all that information is there.
Start a trial with no credit card required and start building your website today.
When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure you use offer code WAN and you get
10% off your first purchase.
It really is the easiest one.
My cousin just started a business, I was like, just do that thing.
We're not even on the sponsor spot anymore.
One of my favorite things about having Squarespace as a sponsor has been almost any time one
of my like random acquaintances is like, Hey, can you make a website for me?
I'm like, no, you can use this thing though.
It's actually totally cool when I was like 18.
Our merch.
Our merch.
Boom.
Our merch store is starting to pop off.
There's new designs coming all the time.
This is semi new.
There's some really new stuff that's so new.
We couldn't show it right now.
But keep looking at that merch store and Oh, the tech link shirts.
Tech link shirts.
Sweet.
I like it.
They actually look really cool.
I'm into just a smaller little logo there and a nice shirt and that's exactly what they
are.
Nice and soft.
It's just how stated you want it.
This is, this is really awesome, but quite stated and a little logo in the corner is
a little bit more subtle.
You know what?
Yeah.
And that's what's coming soon.
It's just like LTT logo.
Heck yeah.
It's pretty sweet.
There you go.
You know what stands out about these?
I never, never saw any like, let me put it this way.
I came home and my wife was wearing this to bed.
I was like, what are you doing?
They're soft.
Yes.
Get out of here.
Yeah.
She's pregnant.
She's stretching it out.
Take that off.
But it says a lot.
It says a lot that she wants, she's wearing this stuff now.
Take it off.
It doesn't even matter what's on it.
It's just a good shirt on its own merits.
That's one of the reasons why, so the store is kind of our own store and there's been
a huge amount of, well, Linus Media Group's own store, and there's been a huge amount
of effort within the team to make sure the shirts are good, to make sure the prints on
the shirts are actually good quality.
I got a shirt from a company that I'm not going to name because I like them, but I got
it at a show and after one wash, the whole thing looked like it was actually dying.
Like the whole logo was disintegrating.
Oh no.
That sucks.
That won't happen to these, which is great.
That's too bad.
But shipping to Europe very recently got way cheaper.
Yeah.
We actually saw a spike, I think, when it happened.
Yeah.
That's cool.
So just a heads up on that one, because it is a new kind of operation that the guys are
working on, shipping to certain areas has been a little rough, but over time as we're
shipping more and more stuff, getting better deals, getting way better deals.
And Europe went from like pretty brutal to actually quite cheap.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Hopefully that continues to happen.
Exactly.
Sweet action.
What do you want now?
Five minutes on this one?
Sure.
Let's do it.
So it turns out competition is good and Steam is like, oh crap, Epic Game Store exists.
So Epic Game Store has an exclusive called Metro Exodus.
Yeah.
It sold two and a half times more copies on the Epic Game Store than a comparable game
Metro Last Light sold in the same amount of time on Steam.
Two and a half times more.
And what this proves, according to one of the Epic guys, he said, it's really about
your game, not so much about the store you sell it on.
And I think that's true.
Like are people loyal to Steam or do they just go wherever the game is?
I don't think there's a lot of fan loyalty.
I'm going to absolutely counter this a little bit.
Somewhat to play devil's advocate, to just drive the conversation forward, somewhat because
I think that is a super BS statement to a certain degree.
I think a lot of it is definitely about your game.
Look at Apex Legends.
There was no marketing around that before it came out and it blew up immediately.
It can be definitely about your game, but a lot of the driving around that is there
was no traditional marketing for Apex Legends.
What there was was huge million dollar deals to get streamers to play it on day of launch.
Ninja got a million dollars for one stream, as far as I know, Shroud and a whole bunch
of other streamers were also paid to play it on launch.
There's a lot of new age marketing for Apex.
There was actually a ton of marketing.
It was just right away on launch instead of crappy trailers from way before launch.
And it was a good game.
And it was a really good game.
So when they played it, they're like, this is sick.
So marketing and the game matters.
Both those things matters.
I think a huge amount of marketing for Metro Exodus, like way more than probably any version
of Metro has ever had in the past was everyone complaining about the fact that it was on
the Epic game store.
The fact that Metro Exodus was an exclusive on the Epic game store going, Hey, everyone,
there's this cool game that we're showing you in this article.
That's on the Epic game store.
Buy it here was probably a big freaking help.
It was on the top of Reddit.
As far as I know, it was all over the place.
Oh my goodness.
Metro Exodus is going to be an Epic game store exclusive.
If you bought the collector's edition, there's a sticker on the back that covers the steam
logo and puts the Epic game store logo that tops Reddit again.
Like there was huge talk about it.
Sorry.
Let me ask you this.
Aside from this particular example, do you personally feel like you have a loyalty to
any game store or distribution platform or the content is King?
I prefer content is King for me.
For sure.
It's about the game.
It's a sliding scale probably.
Yes.
But I would prefer to buy something on steam because I find notable annoyances in the other
platforms.
Like there's, there's a number of notable annoyances with origin design things that
I don't like about the platform and I mean EA as well.
Sure.
So I will grant that if there's, if it's, if a game is available on all, all district,
all platforms, it's not usually the case, but if it is, then you're going to have your
favorite.
Right.
And maybe it's usability or where your friends list is or something like that.
That's probably a big part of it, but more and more people are using discord and other
like agnostic things.
Yeah.
So my biggest thing is the game for sure.
To give an example of the tie in with what you were just talking about is Hades, a game
from supergiant games.
I'm a massive supergiant games fan boy, Bastion is one of my favorite games ever.
Hades came out on the Epic game store only.
I bought it immediately and had to download and install the Epic game store to play it.
I just did it because I was like, they're one of my favorite game developers.
I'm sure I love this game.
I did love the game.
There's not a lot of friction there.
No.
Here's another thing that might sway where you buy, get your game from.
On the Epic game store, the developers only have to pay out 12% to that's how much the
Epic game store is going to take.
They're going to take 12% of the revenue on steam.
They're taking 30% for the first $10 million in sales.
After that, valve's going to take 25% then further down to just 20% after 50 million
in sales, 20% is still a lot more than 12% and $50 million in sales is a lot.
So you know, the developer's getting more.
So if you care about that, you might go to Epic game store.
There's also some other stuff like this, which I definitely don't know enough about.
But is Epic game store user data accessible by the Chinese government?
If I remember correctly, I could be super off here because I didn't know we were going
to go this angle on the stream.
So don't believe what I'm saying and look into it on your own.
I think Tencent has a pretty big ownership of Epic games.
Oh, yeah, well, that's a problem.
Is that right or is that super off?
I'm really not sure.
Or maybe, well, they definitely own Fortnite.
While you're looking that up, here's another thing that's kind of cool.
While Metro Exodus runs the developer's own 4A engine, were that game powered by Epic's
Unreal Engine 4, the engine licensing fees would have come out of Epic's 12% cut instead
of being added on top of Steam's 30% cut.
So that is a huge incentive for developers to go on that platform and use that.
That's just a dual incentive.
I think that's so cool.
Use our platform for distribution and use our engine and then you're going to save,
you're going to get so much more revenue.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's a really good angle for them.
The Tencent thing that I just called that was true, apparently Tencent owns 40% of Epic
games.
What does that mean for the law, though?
You know that law that I'm talking about?
Where Chinese corporations have to be amenable to the government and that stuff.
So do they have to be a 51% owner in order for that law to apply?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But it muddies the water for a lot of people.
Anytime China is involved, things get a little bit murky, depending on how people are going
to want to deal with things.
But then you're probably talking to your friends on Discord anyways.
So okay, anyway, part of this article is that the Steam store is being redesigned to look
more modern.
What do you think about that?
Often people don't like redesigns.
The one thing that threw me off a little bit is, in the dock at least, it says specifically
Steam library redesign.
The Steam store, I couldn't give a care if the Steam store changes.
I don't necessarily want huge changes to the Steam library, just because right now it's
extremely efficient.
There's the search bars right there.
You search, why did I just get signed in?
A lot of really fancy interfaces are not easy to use.
They become less efficient.
More clicks are involved.
Or just like there's no clear hierarchy of things.
There's just big flashy tiles, and you're like, I was playing Project Cars 2, and it's
just like settings is here, and quick plays, and they're all just like, and look super
slick, but you're lost.
Whereas the traditional file system look is nice.
And Steam uses that for your library.
The default view is just like tiny text names for each game with no fancy indicators at
all.
I think it's young people.
Because the Epic Game Store is going to have a lot of its users coming there because of
Fortnite.
Fortnite, I would assume, is a pretty young user base.
This is the next generation of gamers.
And if there is any kind of loyalty to the platform, then these are, get them while they're
young on the Epic Game Store.
If Steam or Valve wants to attract those users to their platform, they're going to have to
have a platform that isn't icky when you first log in.
That is like, whoa, this is too information dense, too inaccessible, I'm out of here.
I'm going back to Epic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that would be, so 53% of Fortnite gamers are 10 to 20.
10 to 25.
Yeah.
Half of them.
Is there a younger?
What else we got?
Yeah.
Younger than 10.
No, 4% of them are in strollers.
So yeah, I don't know.
It's just, it's, it's an interesting kind of idea, but I could definitely see that being
a thing.
And my only thing is when they redesigned chat, I don't really think it got much better.
I think, I think chat went from like, uh, what, what, what did I even say here?
Like a 2002 design to like 2000 and late 2000 and yeah, exactly like it didn't even get
into the tens necessarily.
They went, they went from like 2002 to 2000 and let's give them a nine 2009 but like it's
2019 now.
So you redesigned your chat and it doesn't look new.
So are they going to redesign their library and it's just going to potentially be less
efficient potentially and still not look that fancy and new.
Time will tell.
Yeah, we'll see.
I just, the steam, I don't personally have a lot of confidence in steam redesigning things
graphically because it's never been an attractive platform in my opinion.
Should we look at some super chats?
Yeah, let's do it.
Maybe that changes.
Maybe that all changes.
Maybe that changes.
Maybe they do a great job.
I don't know.
I think we probably could know right now.
I think there's details even in the land dog here by reading that.
I'm reading super chats.
Luke, do you also dislike services like Netflix?
I don't have a Netflix subscription.
So do you, is that like Blu rays?
I'm a weird person.
Your old hat.
I'm very old.
But I think one of my things, one of my reasons for doing that is like one of the things I'm
a super fanboy of is Star Wars, specifically within the Star Wars universe.
I am a super fanboy of the Clone Wars animated series.
I bought the Clone Wars animated series on Blu ray and then Disney was like, Hey, we're
going to have our own streaming platform and we're ripping all of our stuff off of your
platforms.
So now my Netflix description is not going to have Star Wars on it anymore, but I still
have it.
So that's, that's my thing is like, I don't, I don't even watch shows that often.
That's another thing.
So like the ones I care about, I have, and I don't have to worry about some new deal
or something coming in with different streaming platforms and, Oh, they're raising their rates
or whatever.
I'm like, I don't care.
I already own the things that happens every month.
Every month there's content that leaves the Canadian Netflix and comes on and I don't
have to worry about it.
All right.
Hit me, hit me with another one.
It's just G force now, but Google's version.
Yeah.
Kind of.
LTX BYOC update, is there one?
Sold out?
Oh, I, yeah, I think, I think they're sold out.
I just mentioned LTX update in general.
The LTX blog has 10 years of gaming PC, PCs booth posted today, 10 years of gaming PCs
booth.
Is that anything to do with the BYOC?
This drawing that Linus did is straight up 10 out of 10.
Did Linus actually do that?
I guess.
It was him?
It wasn't Colton?
I don't know.
That is paint.
That is straight up MS paint.
What the heck?
Look at those arrows.
Like the line from the arrow doesn't even intersect at the point.
Oh my goodness.
This computer is just falling off the edge.
Standing desk.
Don't want people sitting there all day.
Make them move along.
No loitering.
Employee with cattle prod.
Get off my lawn.
That, that, that.
Holy cow.
That's fantastic.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Starcraft 2.
So a physically lined up 10 different games, one year each, so you can kind of float in
between them and see how like graphics and stuff are developed.
With a conveyor belt to just shift you along.
No loitering.
You gotta move.
Move or lose it sister.
What else we got?
Luke by a comb.
I know it looks funky today, right?
Yeah.
Have you ever played Runescape?
Yes I have.
I played Runescape when my internet was so slow that I would launch it in my browser,
go downstairs, make a sandwich and make some peach juice, bring my sandwich, my peach juice
upstairs.
The detail tells me the story is real.
And it is.
And mostly eat it before the game would launch.
I played it back then.
Wow.
And I have it on my phone now, but I played for like four minutes and I was like wow.
That's an online game?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
I was just seeing it around.
But I never knew anyone who played it.
Never played it.
Yeah.
I was pretty into it when I was like real little.
Here in Montana we have a government company that, or wait, we had a company take two billion
dollars in government funding for internet infrastructure and embezzled it.
Nice.
Wow.
Cool.
That is a...
Dual shock is dual doo doo.
Heck yeah.
Guys, move to your left.
You're off center.
Yeah.
I think we're off center most of the stream.
Oh well.
Have you seen any info about the Epic Store reading Steam user info files?
Yeah.
I heard something about that too.
Like the Epic Store is kind of creepy, which throws me off a bit.
That is sprinting for some reason.
That is going to something very important.
PC gaming has seen a huge boom in population since 2013 when Metro Last Light came out.
I don't think that's why that happened.
Oh I see what you're saying.
Okay.
Exodus has also been absolutely everywhere in PC gaming news.
Sales numbers shouldn't be a surprise.
Yeah.
That's actually a pretty good point.
Yeah.
Since 2013, especially because of streaming, PC gaming has exploded.
There's way more people on PC gaming now than there was before.
Intel has seen the first increase in gaming PC CPU sales for desktop in a long time, fairly
recently.
Pretty crazy.
Also, Metro Exodus is like one of the most talked about games this year.
And yeah, the whole ecosystem has changed so much since 2013 with streaming and esports.
Every aspect of it is so different now.
So Epic being like, oh yeah, it's just about the game is a little ridiculous, especially
because at least I know with Hades, I don't know if this happened with Metro Exodus, but
I feel like it did.
I just don't have any facts for this.
I do know with Hades, the Epic Store was promoting Hades elsewhere and Epic bought out that exclusive
activity.
So they're just trying to promote a game that they...
I will certainly concede that that statistic is two and a half times better than that.
That is pretty misleading.
I still think that the overall point of people like content is king and they're not too loyal
to the stores.
I still think that stands.
I do agree with that.
Yeah.
But with that, the show is over.
I'll see you next week.
Boom.
Later folks.
That's it.
I'm going to go BS off on the laptop, but that's not how that works.