The Future of Xbox, PlayStation Price Hikes, and Why Low-Income Gamers Are Getting Left Behind

32:53We saw literally one trailer. And that game has me infinitely more excited than, to be honest, a new Halo project, right? Because it's new. It's playing in a new space. It's thinking up new ideas. They didn't go back to Uncharted for a reason. so I'm like maybe that's what I'm hoping for in the next space I do want to play and before I switch over to the Playstation thing I understand the current market of where we are and I understand how hard it is to get anything new into people's faces we have the most games that we've ever seen on the planet come out more often than ever the ability to make a game is difficult but there are a ton of new games out every day.

33:39And it was a really good piece on, on that, on the gamertag radio piece where, you know, they talked about the folks who are kind of most willing to try new things on PC because of the lack of needing to pay for multiplayer and things like that. It's a really good point. And again, it's a piece that I think you should all be checking out, but I want new, I want new stuff out of Xbox. I want Xbox to feel new. I want them to go hard in the paint. I want them to feel like they are embracing their identity in a new way that's bringing in new people. And I feel like leaning on your laurels in that old way of pulling in those old things just doesn't cut it anymore.

34:16And I feel like it is not a thing where I'm separating myself from the brand because I love the brand and I love playing in that space. But they've got to do something that is going to be bold. whether it be hardware design whether whether it be a feature set whether it be going after new ips and getting exclusivity on some of that stuff whether it be curation which i thought was a really good conversation that we'll see uh in both of those pieces that come up but i want them to go hard on new old ip is not going to be the move for me in that way i do want to talk about the playstation side because i think there was a really good clip from uh kind of funny as well let's check that out right about now what i've brought up a million times and i want to bring back out of course is that cfo the chief financial officer tau lin who talked about the shareholders and talk to the shareholders about the audience right stick with me i'm going to read from polygons patricia patricia hernandez reporting based on sony's early february earnings call where cfo lin detailed the japanese company's latest business strategy to shareholders lin's presentation noted that while sales of the new playstation 5 units are declining Sony saw a small uptick in monthly active users for the console in December 2025.

35:27Revenue from PlayStation Plus, Sony's gaming subscription service, quote unquote, reached a record high in quote last quarter, Lynn said. Sony intends to keep negotiating with suppliers to keep costs down on the hardware front, but the trajectory of these negotiations is hard to predict. In the short term, Sony needs to find a way to keep making money. Quote, given the stage of our console cycle, our hardware sales strategy can be adjusted flexibly. And we intend to minimize the impact of increased memory costs on this segment going forward by prioritizing monetization of the installed base to date.

36:02I think that is such an important quote. And this is before they raise the price, you know, pro up to 150, 100, etc. down to$50 for the portal. I think that's so important because I really do think even though that sounds bad to a degree of monetizing, I think that is where we are headed. that storm is going to come ashore here and hit them and when they do i think that they're in such a different spot than xboxes on the xbox show yesterday i talked so much about how i don't trust microsoft coming down on them this is bad eventually xbox go or i'm sorry microsoft goes fuck it xbox dead microsoft gaming that's what we're doing you gotta playstation being so successful already when this storm hits and it gets worse as i've been predicting it will or whatever i really do see them hemorrhaging more closures it sucks more layoffs it sucks but getting back down to shit we need to have the rallying cry of this is playstation and going back even i'm not talking numbers and it being that dire but going back to that playstation 3 into 4 mentality of like no no we you are it's we are groot you are playstation we are celebrating that we are talking to the audience and talking about the exclusives and talking about the developers and having a face that's actually connected to all this because for me that's what i would fix about playstation now both getting ready for that but i still think a little bit of what i talked about with xbox like playstation was at its best when there were faces attached to playstation when it was that yeah you could buy a playstation and just play the biggest games and never know the people behind your games but when there was a shoe when there was an adam and there was a Jackie T Jack Jack Trenton out there like that was fun for us and it became you knew more about what was going on and his PlayStation 4 took PlayStation to the stratosphere by having such a simple thing Mark Cerny being out there on stage we know we fucked up with the cell processor and PS3 this is easy to develop for it's about games games games games games well Xbox said it's about Call of Duty and TV and Call of Duty and TV TV you know like they went the opposite direction PlayStation cooked them and they lived in that for a while with the sharing video Adam and shoe all that different stuff that we loved.

38:11And then once they got humongous, they didn't want people talking anymore. So they shut those, shut that down. People left the company, you know, now Herman's there, but Herman barely speaks ever. And like, you're just in a place now where it's just a brand. And I think just being a brand can have brand loyalty, but it doesn't have that. All the shit's going South. And I am committed to this platform feel to it. It's fun. Yeah. Go for it. Go for it. It's funny. I feel like some of our talking points here are going to so much echo. some of the Xbox points because I know Mike kind of brought up the same thing with Xbox of like bring back Major Nelson bring back some faces that we can actually connect with I think one of my main points in talking about this is to Greg's thing of we got to get back to like Prime PlayStation we got to lock in and like you know focus on to weather the storm is IP and is the video games let's get back to making the video games that people care about and want to play right like games i look back at late ps4 generation is like damn we were living going back to the games i was mentioning whether it be god of war 2018 spider-man horizon last was to ghost of tsushima right like these are within a three-year period of each other if i was to reach back further it would be bloodborne right like uncharted 4 um this generation we've seen so much uh development time get lost to this live service push and these games either not coming out or coming out and disappearing in two weeks because oh shit this didn't work people didn't actually want this i'm not i'm not necessarily of the team wipe all live service from existence from playstation i i think there could be something there of course me mike and you're loving marathon and like that's a game i want to continue to see live even though i get scouts telling mike before i'm like if marathon shuts down i'm out of here i'm not doing video games anymore i'm done but um we got to get back to giving people the games that they want right video games take a long time to make i shouldn't be waiting this long between like some of these bigger playstation titles whether it be something like an uncharted whether it be something like the last of us whether it be something like even intergalactic right like and i would if you go for it to go with your point here you shouldn't be waiting so long between big playstation titles and i would go as far as to say ghost of yote okay, Uncharted.

40:26Other studios, you just mentioned three Naughty Dog games, sure, but it used to be that it felt like, all right, well, Sony Bend will put out their game and then Sucker Punch will do this. Then we'll get the Naughty Dog game. Then it'll be a Gran Turismo. Then you pepper it. You could see where we were going and see the lineup of why you're dedicated. Take it a step further and this again will echo some of what we talked about with Xbox. I look at Naughty Dog. I look at, all right, you guys are all in on Intergalactic right now. Games looking great. Awesome. Hey, somebody else is making Uncharted.

40:53I don't care if you don't want somebody else to make Uncharted. We are PlayStation. We own the IP. We need this right now because financial times are getting tough. We're taking Uncharted and we're giving it to a Bluepoint RIP or giving it to a studio that we own that would spend better time working on this than to make the next Days Gone that comes and goes. Again, I'm not going to harp on this because I just talked about it for 10, 15 minutes. But if this is the state of the space where we're continuously asking all of these other smaller teams to take up the mantle of these other IPs that are the same IPs that we've already known to come and love, I think we're in a bad spot as a gaming industry.

41:35Now, mind you, I was looking at some of the IPs that they put out as well on the PlayStation side. Astro's Playroom, Returnal, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Astro Bot, Rise of the Ronin, which didn't do that well. But like, Saros, which is going to be coming out very, very soon. And, you know, of course, Intergalactic, like Bless said. Even if you just look at the framing of those games in comparison to what we've been talking about on the Xbox side. those are very different kinds of titles with vastly different understandings of what they're trying to be i think the portfolios are going to be very different of course based on where you are for you know uh second party studios first party studios and that kind of stuff but they're also playing in a space that feels newer right even if the underlying ideas around what those games are going to wind up being are fairly similar, the things that you're looking at are like, oh, well, that's a totally new story in a world that I didn't think I knew about, like Tsushima or Yotei or any of those things, even though those are, you know, a sequel.

42:45Yotei is a sequel. You know, what was it? Returnal, very different game that could absolutely be on an Xbox platform, right? It could totally be on that space. where are those kinds of games coming out of this camp doing this stuff? I'm really excited about state of the K three, which is just got some information about a play test that's happening. I'm super excited about that thing. That is different, but we saw that three years ago and now we're just finally kind of seeing stuff bubble up around it. I feel like we are again in this space of stagnation from a creative perspective. And that's not necessarily from the teams themselves, in that same discussion.

43:30I think from a fan and a player perspective, we are not seeing people give games the potential to grow in some of these ways too. Now, mind you, again, that comes back to money. That comes back to time. That comes back to interest. That comes back to a lot of different things. But like I've said on this show a long time ago, all of these things that we have seen bubble up, layoffs and internal turmoil and all, you know, industry mess ups and people not getting their games out and, and, and grifters and all of this stuff is affecting the game space in a way that is very, very new in a way that is not helpful.

44:12And it is now coming to fruition that we have now gotten out of the COVID area era. And we're finally seeing the last drips and drabs of those games finally starting to come out. But what's going to happen after that? and what are we going to talk about after that the last xbox showcase was fantastic the last playstation uh showcase was pretty pretty good they had some stuff in the akina it was was really cool there was a couple of games in there that looked really dope but you know what there was a game that got everybody excited wolverine wolverine was the game when everybody was like oh shit right so like those are some big games that are coming out on both platforms but they are just very different in what those what those look like that goes back to that conversation again i want the xbox version to come out with something that is very very new i want playstation to continue to grow in a space that is doing stuff that is very new and innovative in a lot of those ways um shout out to ariel knight go play uh his his new game uh that's out in the world right now he says the middle class gamer who will try new things is is are gone that's that's gonna come up to a spot that we're going to talk about right now.

45:19Actually, you know what? Let's run into that because it perfectly runs into what Ariel said because that conversation around the middle class gamer, the gamer who is not willing to try new things is really, really evident. But I think this was a really good conversation that came up on Gamertag Radio that speaks to that really, really well. And like thinking of the sort of like the big three, right? That we usually talk about taking PC for as much as we can out of the conversation between the strategy that you mentioned of Xbox putting their software everywhere, PlayStation trying to make their hardware number one, and Nintendo really focusing on brand.

45:58You know, that Mario movie may get to a billion faster than anything we've ever seen. Who's making the best bets here? Who's winning? I think surviving is winning right now. Another fantastic question and positioning of how you're thinking about it. That's exactly how I'm thinking about it too.

46:20Everyone's placing different bets, right? That's what makes things interesting right now. Back in the day, like everyone was just Cube and Xbox and PlayStation 2. We're all kind of battling for the same market. Now it's a different world, right? Everyone's got their own kind of angle on it. I was a little surprised to see PlayStation pull back on the PC thing because they need to expand. But of course, new leadership, former hardware folks, Like I can see them. I can see why they're trying to retrench that Xbox has invested in all of these things, these alternative ways of playing. But even they're starting to talk more about like centering on the console, which I don't even know what that really means yet.

47:00Who wins is going to depend to a great extent on what happens next in the macro economy, in the geopolitical situation, in the component situation and in the AI data center situation. If it gets worse, if all that gets worse, then the folks who have invested most in cloud probably are better off. If that chills out, then the folks that have invested less probably do better. And Nintendo, they've taken the most broad appeal, like you mentioned, of just trying to not have to rely so much on their gaming group to drive their business. And that might end up being the smartest there. But yeah, everyone's kind of taken a different bet.

47:41But how that plays out, I don't think anyone really knows.

47:48Surviving is winning. That is the tagline of 2026, 2027, and the back half of this generation. Surviving is winning. That is a wild and sobering statement. and speaks to the current way that we're all moving as people in the industry, people who are thinking about the space, folks who are looking to build in content spaces in real ways. It is going to be a very specific time for a lot of different folks to figure out how to get in where they fit in. I think everyone is worried about that. I think Matt spoke about it beautifully when you talked about all of these things connecting. And it goes back to, you know, episode that we put out where the tagline or the episode line was Trump is making everything more expensive for you as a gamer.

48:49And we're seeing that happen in big fruition in big ways now where AI plus tariffs plus uncertainty plus bad geopolitical moves are now coming to really take your hobby and ruin it. And it's been, again, these aren't the only pieces of that conversation. There are multiple layers of that discussion that play into that. Again, there's been a lot of mismanagement from a lot of different teams. There's been a lot of big bets that didn't go well. There's been a lot of stepping on rakes by a lot of teams. But thinking about where we kind of move forward, it is going to be a really weird time in the next couple of months.

49:27I think if you are still a person who is on the fence, This is going to be the longest generation of players staying pat and not going to a new platform. I think the folks who are the first movers always are going to be in that space. The folks who are looking to get the newest, best, and brightest are going to be in that space and willing to spend their money for their games. But there was a really good stat that came out of the conversation on Gamertag Radio where they said, the folks who are making money, you're making over$100 ,000 a year as a family, those folks are spending money on games.

50:06If you're making under$50 ,000 or$50 ,000 or less, none of that money is going to want to be going to these kinds of pastimes and hobbies because you're having to spend extra money just to live. So I think at the end of the day, the biggest takeaway from all of this stuff is I think each one of these brands is at a really interesting space. And I think even Nintendo now at this point is getting a little bit of backlash based on their kind of variable pricing, especially the stuff that's been going on on their hardware side, especially with physical games and things like that, where the bet on nostalgia might not necessarily be able to sustain where people are moving to and needs from that perspective.

50:53I think what also winds up happening is you're going to see a lot more people just not feeling good about the space because gaming for the most part is your pastime and is your escape to find other things. And once that escape goes away, you're going to have to divulge and divert that energy into something else. And a lot of folks are not necessarily going to be able to do that from a gaming perspective. um so you know the the rise in the price of the playstation the change in all the small things of like how much is it going to cost to be able to get those new things to you uh all are going to have a much bigger cost and a much bigger price and all of that stuff is going to trickle down to players and i don't think those numbers are going to change i think we are definitely in the scope of the$1 ,000 console,$1 ,000 plus console.

51:46And I don't think that even if the the geopolitical changes happen or the financial things stabilize in a way that's going to be beneficial to us as people change, I don't think those prices are going to go away. And that sucks for everybody because you won't have anything else to go to in those spaces. Or you're just going to have to be one of the folks who is not playing that many games per year or it may be a thing where a company like xbox can capitalize and say we're going to change the pricing on game pass in a way that actually affords for you to be able to play more things i think it actually gives you more spaces to play because play anywhere as a concept and as a feature is a more valuable one than playstation plus at this point in an actual way because you'll get the benefit of being able to do that stuff across console and PC.

52:38So even if you're not in that space, you have options. I think with PlayStation now saying we don't want to put things on PC, that removes options from you and boxes you win as a PlayStation player. If you're looking at not being able to afford the new console, if you can't afford a thousand dollar console, which we don't know the price yet, but it's potentially going to be around that. And you're not even going to be able to go play things on PC. If you have a beefy PC to be able to go play those things. so that's going to be really really hard to be able to do anything like that i don't think we're going to get a playstation xbox series x version of a playstation 6 i don't think we're going to get multiple skews on it that are going to be like here's a cheaper version of it and here's the more expensive version of it because then you're bifurcating the the audience again you know before it was digital versus non-digital which is different than here's a lower spec version versus the high spec one that you're used to.

53:30So, man, we are in a really weird, wild spot, but we have a lot of things on the horizon for what that looks like. All right, we're going to take a quick, super fast, mega fast break, and we'll be right back after this. What if you could transform your body, level up your mind, and unleash your warrior spirit all by playing a role-playing game. Well now you can with Infinite, the world's first science-backed fitness fantasy RPG where real-world progress becomes your power. Create your avatar based on your goals and level, then explore game modes like the dungeon, academy, and sanctum using powerful tools and apps to forge real transformation.

54:19You ready to to combine fitness and gaming to unlock your ultimate potential, then visit fitness fantasy RPG.com and use the code spawn on me for 10 % off your custom plan, play infinite and become the hero of your own fitness story. Welcome back to the spawn on me podcast. This is episode 569 of our show. Thank you so much for hanging out during our break and shout out to all the folks who are here watching us live on Twitch X YouTube, and all those spaces. Again, remember to go subscribe to our show. You can go subscribe to our channel. We're trying to get to 10 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. Of course, we want to get to 100 ,000 on YouTube so we can get a plaque.

55:02But we're going to get to 10 ,000 before the end of the year. We want to get to 10 ,000 folks on our Spotify account, our Apple Podcast account, and all those wonderful places. So we have some goals, goddammit. We want to get there in some real spaces. On the back half of our show, if you missed the first half, Go check out the rest of it and go check out the conversations around how to fix all the Xbox and PlayStation, all that good stuff. But to end out this episode, we had a really great discussion with the team over Asus to talk about their production line, the making of the Xbox X, I'm sorry, Xbox ROG Ally X and the Kojima laptop, working with those two teams and working on the collabs there.

55:41So here is our interview with the folks from Asus. Hi everybody in Burkago. We have a very special episode of Spawn on Me. Today we are rocking with Whitson Gordon coming to us from the team over at Asus. And we're going to be talking a little bit about how they're growing with so many of these cool brands that we know and to come and love and how the collaborations have been working alongside them. Whitson, it's so good to have you come and rock with us today. How are you doing? I'm doing good, Kalief. How you been? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. It has been a nice day here in Portland, Oregon.

56:15The sun is actually out, even though I am in the basement, not absorbing any of that vitamin D. But it's great to be able to have amazing folks like you come on and come hang out with me to talk about video games and talk about hardware. That's the main thing that I like to do with my time. So you call the right guy. Heck yeah, exactly. So, you know, I've been a big fan of the Asus brand for a long time. The ROG part of the vertical and part of the business has been one that I'm mostly connected to through, you know, me being a PC builder and me being a person who games often. You as the senior manager on the marketing content side, I know a lot of folks in my world and fans of the show are like, so what do you do?

57:02So when you have a role like that, what's kind of your main objective when you're working for the brand? Yeah, it's weird. I actually do a lot of things. I kind of wear a lot of hats. So I do our content marketing, which means articles that go up on our site. I do a lot of our live streams on our YouTube channel and Twitch channel. We do all different kinds of streams, unboxings, things like that. I go to all the conventions like CES and I manage our Discord community. So it's a lot of kind of different things. I come from your world. I used to be a reviewer and a writer and a podcaster and all that stuff.

57:41And so after 10 years of doing that, I kind of moved to this side. And I'm ultimately doing a lot of the same stuff, writing, editing, podcasting. But it's cool because I get a little bit more insight into sometimes how these things are made, which is kind of a new experience for me and getting to kind of give feedback on products and things like that, which has been really fun. I love that because now we get a chance to talk shop on multiple layers. One, we share a common ethos in having worked behind the microphone and doing all this kind of work in this space. I've also worked in some of the technology spaces.

58:15I used to work at Intel in their AR and VR space. Oh, OK. So like we have a shared language here of understanding where some of those things kind of lay. um when you're doing that kind of work having that eye and i think that perspective talk to me a little bit about how that has kind of informed the way you do the work now because i think i i knew very little before getting into those spaces having been a person on this side of the fence first right and then learning what it was like to understand the way that a marketing beat works or the way that um you know what is it what does a go-to-market plan actually look like in those respects and being a part of that funnel in that way.

58:56What was kind of your biggest kind of takeaway from changing in those worlds or being a part of both of those? It's interesting because in a way it's kind of a culture shock and there are still so many, sometimes it feels like there's still so many acronyms and things like that that I don't know because one of the great things about the way that Asus has our team set up, right? We have a big marketing department and everyone that works there is amazing. We've got gamers there. We've got people who have been doing marketing their whole lives. Our little team, they kind of let us off the leash and we kind of run free a little bit, which means that you got to learn that marketing voice and kind of some of the strategies.

59:39But at the end of the day, what works best for us is serving the gamers in our community, in our audience, right? Which is not that different from what I was doing before. Ultimately, our goal is to answer the kinds of questions that people are asking about our products so that they can find the right ones, so that they understand how to make the most of it, use our software, all of that kind of stuff. Which, you know, that's really similar to what I was doing before, just kind of from the other side of the fence. So for us, it really is all about serving that audience and answering the questions that they have.

1:00:14Yeah, I know that must be a fun part of the job and also a little bit daunting, right? Because you're getting so many different versions of understandings from the community. You know, you have folks who are very, very kind of attuned to being in that tech space. You have the kind of layman's who are in that space. And then you have the enthusiasts who are kind of at the top of that funnel, most times who are the kind of most, you know, evangelist parts of the conversation, right? Those are the folks who are driving a lot of communications for the teams through their own work and through their own kind of love of the product.

1:00:50What has been a really fun kind of layer of that for you kind of working through each one of those layers and being able to craft language for each one of those? Dude, you nailed it. I mean, actually, I think one of the most interesting parts for me is I'm going to take in a different direction and say something that I didn't have to do as much on the other side that I have kind of had to learn as I go here is because what I the kind of marketing that I do is so steeped in the community. Right. I'm the admin of our Discord server. We're on Twitch and YouTube every week talking to people and chat and things like that is synthesizing all of the feedback we get from people about the products.

1:01:26You know, when the original ROG Ally launched, that was such a huge launch. And our Discord got flooded with people who had just bought the device. I was like, this is awesome. I totally want to see this in the next software update. Or like, oh, man, the hardware would be even better if you tweaked this kind of. And the feedback was just like a tidal wave coming in. And so then going to the people on the product development side and being, okay, here's all of this feedback we have. Some of it is conflicting. Some people want one thing. Some people want another thing and they can't both coexist in the same product.

1:01:58And then learning from them as the past few years have gone by, I'm like, okay, here's how we kind of make these decisions, synthesize that feedback. Sometimes you have to unpack it and find the question underneath or the feedback underneath the feedback, right? Like you say you don't like this button being on the device. But what you're really saying is I accidentally hit this button sometimes and that bugs me. Other people really like the button. So the feedback under the feedback for us is like, maybe we make that button remappable or unmappable so that both camps are happy. It's not always about just like, I want this thing.

1:02:34And so we do this thing. It's about kind of seeking that deeper understanding of what the pain points are, what the use cases are for all of these different types of users, like you said, and then turning that into a product that serves as many people as possible. that is something that I had no experience doing. And that's been so interesting to learn about. I absolutely love to hear you talk about that because I, that was, that's a, that's a very cathartic and therapeutic moment for me too, where I'm like, Oh, you feel my pain and you actually understand how that works in a tangible way. Cause I think a lot of folks who, when I'm talking to folks on social media, when we're having, you know, comments around our show and I'll have a take about a thing, it's coming from a space that you occupy, right?

1:03:19It's a space that I am also kind of involved in and trying to figure out how do you share that information properly and widely knowing that you are hitting so many different segments of the market and trying to figure out how to get that sometimes very technical language into a space that is much more digestible for folks to be able to kind of infuse into what they're trying to do as that feedback. The other part of that I think is really interesting is hearing you talk about the kind of workflow between the parts of the organization in that way. You and the team being that frontline gathering of information, synthesizing that information and shooting that back up to product development and product stuff that will eventually go into next versions of R &D for things.

1:04:08How difficult is it to parse out some of that too? Because, again, it's like the ability to know what people are doing because you can't see it. You're not over their shoulder looking at them using the device. And knowing that folks don't necessarily have the full breadth and depth of language to be able to give you exactly what you're looking for in that way. How has it been translating that up to the folks who are making the kind of fullest decisions at that point? What are the things that you're hearing from them that are like, can you ask this to get a better understanding of what this is from the folks out in the field?

1:04:47What's the kind of conversations you're having with that part of the team? Absolutely. And so one of the cool things about the way that we're gathering feedback is obviously, you know, we're reading all the YouTube comments. We're watching all the reviews. We're reading Reddit and all that. Like people think that we don't see that stuff. We're trolling that stuff all the time for feedback. But one of the cool parts about my job, kind of like I mentioned, is because I'm in the Discord all day long, every day, because I'm on stream with people who are sending us feedback in chat live, I can actually have a conversation with them.

1:05:20And I can actually say, oh, that's an interesting piece of feedback. OK, tell me more. Can you explain to me like what I don't quite understand the situation that you're in when this is happening or whatever. Right. And that way that we can kind of start to parse that stuff out. And one of the things that we try to do, especially on our live streams, kind of like you mentioned, is like you have this really tech savvy audience that maybe doesn't understand certain aspects of the product development cycle and like and some of the hidden costs that go into things or whatever. And we can explain those things to them.

1:05:48But then even the especially the more layman side, the people who aren't necessarily tech enthusiasts, they're just gaming enthusiasts who want to get into their games and play. we still try to, like you said, distill that technical information down as simply as possible so that they do understand some of the decisions that we make and some of the trade-offs that we constantly have to battle. We get so many people being like, why don't you just make an ally that has this and this and this and this and all these premium features? And I'm like, yeah, that's great, but it would be$2 ,000. Do you want to pay that?

1:06:23Because we would not sell as many of them. And like, there's this whole kind of, but being able to have that back and forth conversation where it's not just like, I'm not just yelling into the void, or we're not just keeping it secret and putting out the device with people feeling like we're not listening to them. Having a back and forth with people and really gaining an understanding of how they're using the device in a way that maybe is very different than the way I use the device. Because I do, I, you know, I'm a gamer. I play on this all the time, but I'm just one guy. and even you know our team of people who are testing this stuff that's just a team of people it's not the you know huge audience that we ultimately sell to that could be using the device in ways we never even thought of yeah i think the the thing i hear also in in many many discussions with developers and with folks who are working on that side of the fence is you think you know what's what's out there until the players get their hands on it and then it changes everything thing in terms of, well, here are the things that we, you know, we're looking out for.

1:07:23And then these whole other layers of discussion prop up after those. And then you have to kind of deal with those pieces. I do want to dig into conversations. I love that you kind of talked about the ROG ally. And it has been one of my favorite devices of the past couple of years. I think for me. Dude, safe. Yeah. Yeah, like, you know, especially the, you know, with the brand cohesion and connection with Xbox and the Xbox Rock Ally X, which is now my favorite handheld in the space, not only just because of the performance there, but like my hands don't hurt. and that is a huge thing i'm an old fart so like you know i need to you know i need my hands to keep going as long as i can because i want to play as you know well into my 50s and all of those um how has it been from your from your side of the fence because i know there are so many different connections to how that works when you have two big companies decide they're going to collaborate and do something like this.

1:08:29From your role and what you've gotten the chance to do in terms of sharing some of the messaging around that and sharing what this device can do to a broader audience, what has it been like to be a part of those discussions and seeing all of those things kind of work in the minutia of that? What has it been like to kind of have that be on your plate in some form or fashion? I mean, it's so cool because, like I said, just having that kind of, you know, pinky in the product development side of things as I'm giving feedback and stuff has been awesome just on the ROG side. Like just doing that with ROG has been so cool.

1:09:05And then you bring someone like Xbox into it. And all of a sudden this whole world opens up because, you know, one of the big reasons we partnered with them is, okay, we've got this really good piece of hardware that we've kind of, you know, really fine-tuned over the last couple of generations. But one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we were still seeing was that people wanted the software to be more streamlined. They wanted it to feel a little bit more console like and the benefits of Windows are great. But, you know, what if this could be like an Xbox, right? And so being able to actually partner with Xbox themselves and have an opportunity to be like, okay, their resources are enormous.

1:09:50Not only do they have a direct connection with the Windows team, which, and I think, first of all, this is like this collaboration right between us and Xbox is unlike anything that we've really seen with these two giant brands coming together in this really integrated way. And then even when you look at the Xbox and Windows team, the way that they have come together and started to work on that Xbox mode that I believe right now is starting to roll out to other PCs and all of that kind of stuff. That level of being able to say, what can we do with the underlying OS in addition to the Xbox experience that is going to make this better?

1:10:27What can we do on the developer side? Because Xbox owns these publishers and developers, right? How can we work with the folks actually developing the games to make that experience better on a handheld? You know, not that long after we launched the new Xbox Ally, you saw Doom the Dark Ages get this software update where if you started playing it on a handheld, it had a new handheld preset for graphics settings. And it would automatically set those if it detected that you were booting that up on the Xbox Ally. that kind of that stuff matters too because there's there's so much we can do on the hardware side and there's stuff that they can do on the software side but then having that even deeper third layer the connections to the game developers gives you so much freedom to really dial in that experience oh i'd love to hear you talk about that because i think the the thing that i i don't think a lot of folks know is that that word enablement right the enablement part of how it works back and forth between two companies like that and the suggestions and the brainstorming that goes across of like oh how do we refine this into a way that is you know using some existing hardware that has been revamped and changed over the couple of generations to now get to where we have the kind of xbox branded version of it now that has a lot of that software baked into it alongside you know arm recreate and all those other pieces of it you know of that software already being something as a well-known entity in the space and how that collaborates to do that, plus the Xbox mode.

1:12:08We were getting things both on the hardware, you know, they're both software, you know, enablements, but there's like an OS layer and almost a kind of, you know, skin UI version of some of the things you're able to kind of get to. So you don't necessarily have to always go directly into the Windows OS to be able to get to some of that stuff. What were some of the good learnings from, you know, the continuation of building on those pieces of software that have waterfalled from, you know, things that came from the desktop app that are now moved into the mobile app on a device like this. What have been some of the cool things that you and the team have found that have been like, oh, this has worked really well here.

1:12:49This will work extremely well on a handheld device in this space. Yeah. I mean, so a good example of that might be, you know, a while back in the Xbox app on the desktop, you had those kind of like that little performance profile that would detect your hardware and your machine. It'd be like, oh, this game is going to run well on your machine. Or like this game is going to run okay on the hardware that you have, right? That when you browse the Xbox store, it would have that little line of text. And for the handheld, we were able to take that and expand it further, right? And be like, okay, Xbox would go through their library and say, okay, this title has good performance.

1:13:27It has built-in Xbox like button prompts. It has text that is easily readable on a seven inch screen. We're going to give it this badge that says it's handheld optimized. And if one of those things doesn't quite hit the mark, we'll say that it's mostly compatible and we will list exactly what it is that you might want to watch out for in that game. It might require some graphics tweaks or it might require you to change the font size a little bit bigger or whatever. Right. So that was a cool thing that got expanded when that Xbox app kind of came to to this more handheld form factor. The other cool thing that you mentioned talking about kind of, you know, crossing the streams with with our software and their software and our hardware is.

1:14:13And you kind of mentioned because a lot of people look at this and say, OK, so it's an ROG allied, but with an Xbox logo on it. Like, is it really? And that really isn't what's happening here, right? This isn't just a co-branding thing. This is a co-development thing. And one of the really cool things that's unique to this device specifically right now because of our partnership with Xbox is their ability to develop for this specific hardware. and one of the things that we released in the past couple of months is called default game profiles. So when you launch a supported game, so like Forza Horizon 5 is a good one, Hollow Knight has it, a whole bunch of others.

1:14:55There's a big, big list of games that support this. Instead of having to pick, I want to run this at turbo mode at 25 watts, I want performance mode, having to find the right mode for the frame rate that you want, it just automatically sets it for you. It sets the ideal wattage and the ideal frame cap for that specific game all automatically. And that's something that you can only do when you have Xbox working with our code and this specific piece of hardware to make that experience more streamlined. Because the fewer settings that people have to tweak, the better. Most people just want to jump into their games and play.

1:15:32We want to give you those options if you love to tweak things like I do. But the default should be, I'm in the game. It runs great. Let's play. Yeah. I think what has me most excited is knowing that we already have a fantastic baseline for how that is working. And knowing that, one, I'm using this more often than I ever thought I would, which is great for me. I'm sure my wife is mad at me for playing. oh yes same straight up same thing here i'm like i'm like oh she's she went to sleep all right i can get some games in a little bit before she went you know she went to sleep right um but also i think the the discussion about how the team has been thinking about how to get the time to fun as fast as it possibly can be right and looking at future titles that are going to be coming down the line and saying oh i have less of a worry of will this run well on this device that feels like that is a thing that has kind of gone away even in the past year where i remember on other handheld devices i would play with i spent so much time tweaking and trying to figure out oh is this thing going to run in the way that feels good is it going to you know turn up the heat literally on my handheld device is it going to you know make the the fans run super loud like this thing runs so whisper quiet while also being able to do all this stuff.

1:16:57It is really a fantastic innovation in terms of getting all of those pain points that I think a lot of handheld gamers have had over the years, kind of in line with that stuff. Thinking about that, where are you most excited to kind of see the line kind of grow and things you all are thinking about for innovations that are not necessarily coming in that you can't talk about, but like things that you feel are for you as a player, things that you're also excited for? Yeah. First of all, I love that term, time to fun. Going to start using that in internal meetings. That's a great, great, great term for exactly what we're going for.

1:17:36And I'm excited to see that grow most of all. There are other things in the pipeline. Some we've announced, some we haven't. I mean, one of the things that we have announced, for example, is pretty soon we're going to have an update that's going to make docking the ally to a like a tv or a monitor mouse keyboard um even more seamless which which in its own way is very much a time to fun kind of thing right because it's not tweaking game settings necessarily but it's going into the projection settings and making sure it's displaying on the right monitor and connecting your controller and you have to disable the the controller that's built into this so it recognizes you know all of that stuff we want that to be as seamless as possible because there are a lot of people that actually like to take their ally dock it to a TV and then use it as like a home game console.

1:18:22Right. They just have the one device. So that kind of stuff like that, that philosophy is kind of surrounding so much of what we're working on right now and what Xbox is working on, on their side too. And so, you know, I want to see, I just, I want to see this device become the full featured go anywhere handheld that every time I leave the house, I've got my games. I know I can play them offline. I can boot into them really quickly. Having those developers developing specifically for this is so huge. I mean, you probably have seen the past couple, you know, Xbox game showcases having them talk about, and all these games are going to be handheld optimized, which is, because like you said, a couple of years ago, it was like, this game runs okay, but I got to kind of mess with stuff or I got to wait for some updates.

1:19:13And with more and more developers getting on board with this, that's just going to blow the whole scene wide open. I can't take credit for Time to Fun. I have to say that on the record. I have to give that to my old boss, my old Intel boss, Kim Palastar. I love you. I miss you. I got to give him love for that because that was his phrasing on that. And it stuck with me because it is so pertinent to all of these pieces. I do want to... Especially from a handheld too because if you're sitting at home and you plop down, yeah, you want to be in your game real quick. But on something like this, you might only be jumping into a game for 10 minutes or something.

1:19:48And every second that you are waiting before you're in that match of rocket league, before your kid's soccer practice is done or whatever is crucial. Yeah. It changes so much of what you do. Cause I, for that's, that's like my last, like my gaming handheld space is usually at the end of a day. Like I've played stuff on a console for a couple of hours. I'm finishing up dinner. I've done that. Getting ready to kind of lay down and get that last little bit of dopamine hit before i before i go to bed which is probably what you're not supposed to do if you're trying to go to sleep you're actually trying to like you know pull pull it down and i'm like oh let's play resident evil on the handheld yeah let's give myself some nightmares yeah exactly let me scare myself to sleep um but it's those moments that i think about a lot when it comes to where this space has gotten so quickly and so well like i feel like it's really moved itself um into a really into really good space and i'm really really really actually happy to hear you talk about that docking experience because i as a person who have a lot of friends who are like they are pc um uh first players um but they want a console like experience uh to be able to do the i don't want to sit at a desk and do it and play you know on a monitor this size and i have been leading people before these out before these uh handhelds have come out to say oh you should get a nuk NUC gaming is actually fantastic.

1:21:06And the ROG NUCs that I've seen have been ridiculously good. So I've been leaning people in that direction. But this is also a space now where I'm like, now with that docking experience to be able to have even more of that. And that's actually almost all of my gaming. If it's not done in the Ally, it's done on the TV behind me that I have a custom built PC hooked up to. And I just use Xbox mode on that. Because after sitting at a desk all day, I don't want to sit at a desk and game at night. Like I want to be able to kick back on the couch and relax. NUCs are sweet though. And the cool thing about a NUC is you could like, it's so small.

1:21:38You could like mount it behind the TV and have a completely visible game console. Like that's what's so cool about those devices. Yeah, man. Those are the days, man. I was like, in my techno lust, I keep looking at the one that's on the ROG site and I'm like, oh, that bad boy. The new ROG NUC is sick, dude. Oh, it's so good. I know a friend of mine was at either CES or Computex some years ago, and it seemed like early version. And a couple of my old Intel buddies, they went over and they're working in that division now. And I was like, man, you get to play with so much fun stuff over there in that space.

1:22:13So it's cool to be able to see that. I do want to talk about another collaboration and another partnership that I've seen you all do very recently, which I, as a big, huge Hideo Kojima fan, was like, wait a minute, you're doing what? What's happening now? Like, wait, Kojima's putting out a laptop with Asus and making this thing? The first thing is this thing is stupidly pretty. Like, it is unreasonably pretty in the way that this thing looks. You know, getting a chance to see them all kind of pull this together with the Flow Z13 laptop, which is, I don't know. Walk me through kind of what this is in its kind of fullest capacity.

1:22:56Yeah. So we've had the ROG Flow Z13 for a couple of years. This is kind of our two-in-one gaming tablet. It's got a touchscreen. It's got a detachable keyboard. It's got this really efficient but powerful AMD Strix Halo chip in it. Really amazing device. And then this year, we released kind of a very, very special edition version of it that we collaborated on with Kojima Productions. So we've done some of these before. We've collaborated with other brands to kind of do these special edition laptops or computer components, stuff like that. You've seen, you know, we had the Evangelion line and the Hatsune Miku line.

1:23:37We worked with Acronym and Alan Walker on some laptops. But the Kojima one is definitely special because what better, like, who better to collaborate with than one of the best, the biggest visionaries in the gaming space specifically, right? with such an eye for this, like you said, beautiful design. And so, you know, if you're a Kojima fan, you know Yoji Shinkawa, his genius art director who contributed directly to the design of this machine. It is based off of the previous Flow Z13, but it is not the exact same silhouette. Like you will notice that it does look very different, not just in terms of the colors and stuff, but in terms of the shape of that keyboard, the legends on the keycaps, the design on the back of it.

1:24:27I mean, we even use different materials, right? Yoji Shinkawa came to us and was like, it would be really cool to use carbon fiber on this because that's like part of our design language with our mascot and stuff. And carbon fiber is pretty difficult to work with in a capacity like this. So he kind of came to us and he was like, this isn't actually possible though, right? Like carbon fiber, we cool, we can't do that. But our team doesn't like the word impossible if we can help it. So they figured it out and went back to him and was like, we can do it. Let's do it. The final product looks and feels incredible.

1:25:06I mean, same with like the laser etching. That was another bit of a challenge we had. He had this really cool idea for laser etching, that design on the back. and it was very difficult to do with that design and that spot the way that he had designed it. So we went and bought a bigger laser etching machine in order to make it work just because it was like, and look how well it turned out. It looks so freaking cool. It's so good. So what a cool design process to be able to work with someone that legendary on something like this for something that like, you know, there's so much crossover between our audience and kojima's audience right so the feedback that we got on that once we announced it was so uh validating to see because everyone got so so so hyped for it i mean i loved besides the just like gorgeous design of this machine i was watching the the kind of dev story uh prior to us recording today and i was like they you know them talking about the specifics of how they did the kind of air vents on the back of the machine and trying to figure out good ways to not only, again, use the performance in a way that Asus is known for to make sure it's cooling properly.

1:26:23So when you're gaming on this thing, you won't feel that kind of in the machine, but just also the design of what that takes to be able to get that to aesthetically look pleasing in a way that is very different. I think what I love about ASUS products in those ways is that there is this really intentionality to design and function and how they work together in unison to be able to bring something really special to the space. I know you may not have gotten a chance to work with Kojima-san directly, but I think the ideas that are coming through him and his team are well felt and appreciated by the folks over on your side of the fence because it does feel like there is this ethos of grandeur that happens within that space.

1:27:12I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that part of it in conjunction with this. You talked a little bit about the ends to getting those things done, the laser etching stuff and design and product and stuff. But what does that mean for a team to be able to work together with a person like this to build something that is extremely unique? Something I haven't really seen in the space, not only from the kind of detachable keyboard to tablet angle of it, which is, again, almost a two-in-one machine, but just having that connected branding alongside what we know of Kojima as a visionary in that way.

1:27:47Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head in a lot of ways, right? Kojima Productions is a very intentional group of people, right? They have a vision always. And they would describe that vision as exploring what is possible through play, right? They have this mascot, that guy in the suit with the flag and the carbon fiber mask known as Ludens. Ludens is Latin for those who play. And it's not just passive play, right? Like if you've ever experienced a Kojima game, those listening, I know you have, right? You know it's all about the kind of play that makes you think, that changes maybe how you view certain parts of the world.

1:28:31um kojima productions is is all about exploring like the boundaries of what's possible within the gaming medium and we feel at rog we feel like we have that same goal just from a different kind of area of the equation and so to again like you said to work with someone else who's such a visionary in that space is one of the coolest collaborations we've ever had um the opportunity to do and kind of like I mentioned earlier, there are some partnerships that, you know, for some companies, that's like, let's slap our bobo with our logos on it and call it a day. But this is not like that because we live and breathe in that same space and everything we do is for that community.

1:29:15You know, we were just so humbled to be able to work with someone like that and have them and contribute their own unique style to the device. And also work with us and where our expertise is, like you were talking about, right? Like taking the vents on the back and being like, okay, they have this design idea for this. And we have necessities in terms of how certain things have to be placed for the laptop to function properly. Let's not compromise. Let's integrate those things into the design in a way where every little thing feels intentional because that is what they do, right? And that is what we do.

1:30:01And to be able to bring those two sets of ideas together and create something wholly unique is just so awesome. I love that. I love that. Yeah, getting a chance, because you can tell when Kojima's feeling himself and feeling the thing when he's like, he has a very specific smile when he's doing a thing and he's like, there was a part in the dev doc where he was like playing with the, because there's a set as well. It's like mouse and headset and mouse mat. Yep. And the headset looks ridiculous. But like - That's just my favorite part too. It looks so good. Not to mention the case that it comes in too, that white suitcase, which is, I mean, it looks awesome and it feels incredible too.

1:30:44Like the action of opening it is so smooth and the latches, like it's so satisfying. I'm such a nerd and love stuff like that though, but it's so good, right? I know people listen to this like, Kali, shut the hell up. Like, what are you talking about? In terms of like, I like to see the case. I'm like, no, but it feels good. But I know that there are people listening that totally get that too. Right. And like, that's who it was made for. Yes. Yeah. You, you know, when something, the same people who are like, Oh no, I like the way that my mouse clicks here or this keyboard. Like it's for us who are having that conversation.

1:31:16I'm going to ask you one last question. Cause we're almost out of time. Is. All right. So we give you the magic wand. We say, Whitson, you get to make the next collaboration, one of your own choosing, one that you've always wanted to do, something that speaks to your heart, your mind, and soul as a gamer. What would be a collaboration that you would do, and what device would you do it with? That's a really hard question. You're putting me on the spot, man. Mini spot. You know, it's funny, because if you had asked me that a year or two ago, I would have said like, oh man, I would have loved to see like a Doom collaboration, but we actually did that last year.

1:31:56We did the Doom the Dark Ages graphics card, which was so sick and one of my favorite pieces that we did.

1:32:05I could totally see like, okay, so if I'm just thinking off the top of my head here, I could put my favorite laptop together with one of my favorite games and they would totally work together. My favorite laptop we make is the Zephyrus G14, the thin and light ultra portable. Um, but honestly you could do this with one of the, the Strix machines too. I'd love to see a collab with like a Forza Horizon five type thing, like a hot total hot rod, like super sleek, super, but like colorful. And like, uh, that's the first thing that comes to mind with that. If I had my magic wand, I would take a few days to sleep on it, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

1:32:43And that's, cause that's one of my games that like, that's the game in, I play in between every other game I play. I always come back to Forza Horizon. And in terms of the aesthetic of something like supercars, there's so much fun stuff to play with there because it's hardware and hardware. I'd love that. That's a damn good answer right off the top of the head. I did put you on the spot a little bit. I'll take it. Damn good answer. Damn good answer in that way. Seriously, man, I want to thank you for being on the show with us today. We run out of time. that 30 minutes went real fast. I know, man.

1:33:22I could do this for hours and hours and people would stop listening. No, no, no, no. It just means we have to bug you to come back on another time. That's the way. Hey, anytime, man. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Love hanging out. Seriously, thank you again for being here on the show. Thank you for dropping some gems on us with all of your knowledge there. And as a brother in marketing, I feel your pain and I feel your joy. I know what it's like, man. to work in those spaces and to make all this wonderful stuff happen. So I'm very excited to see where you all continue to grow.

1:33:55It has been really fun to be able to see these initial collaborations with these very specific folks be in the space and to see how that's kind of growing the brand and the ecosystem of hardware for all of you as well. If there are any places where you'd want to send folks to learn more about the gear that you all are putting out, where are some of the places to go check out for more Asus gear? I mean, you can always see our entire lineup at rog.asus.com, but what I will somewhat more selfishly tell people, but also if you're sitting here listening to this or watching this, you might want to listen to or watch us do all the same stuff every week on our Twitch and YouTube channels.

1:34:33So go follow ROG Global on YouTube. We're unboxing new products all the time, getting really in-depth about them if you want to get nerdy, and we have a streamer who streams full-time on that channel as well, showing off the latest games on our newest hardware, which is always fun to watch and check out. So yeah, man, love what you guys are doing here. Thanks to not just you, but those people who are listening to us and giving us all that feedback all the time. Everything we do is for you guys. So super appreciate it. Well, again, thank you, man, for coming through. Everybody at home, go check out the content.

1:35:08It is really cool to see brands like this doing work like that. I think it's a very necessary and needed thing to be able to connect with the audiences in real ways in those ways. So until next time, we're going to take a quick break. We'll have more Spawn on Me after that, and we'll see you in a minute. Yo, what a fantastic interview with Whitson. Again, thank him for coming through and hanging out with us here on Spawn on Me. Always great to be able to hear insights from folks who are doing the work every day and making really fun activations happen and really fun collaborations in the mix. Make sure you go and check out their content because they're working really hard on that stuff.

1:35:49So that is our show for this week. Thank you all for watching. Thank you to all the folks who have been hanging out in the chat. Shout out to Dragons as well for the super chat over on YouTube. Make sure you're checking us out there on twitch.tv slash spawn on me, youtube.com slash spawn on me, our TikTok and Instagram pages we've been putting up some short form stuff on over there as well. So please make sure you're going to check that out. And shout out to literally everyone in the chat. It is Easter Sunday. You can be doing anything else today. It is fantastic to have you here rocking with me here during the live broadcast of the show.

1:36:26We are now in year 13 of the Spawn of Me podcast. Still going strong, making it happen. Please make sure you're subscribing on podcast platforms around the globe. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the other places that we reside. And always a fantastic day here in Burkago. So until next week, we have some really good stuff on the way. We have a really good conversation with the folks from Ball and Gun Game. If you saw the work we did over at GDC and having their posts go viral, showcasing their game, Ball for Ball and Gun Gamers. You're literally shooting a ball in a basketball court while shooting zombies.

1:37:05there's a lot of cultural conversation that goes along with that we'll be talking to them next week we have an interview that we recorded and we'll be sharing with them next week and who knows what's going to happen during the discussions that are happening in the gaming space this week it already blew up last week with playstation and all this other stuff who knows what this week is going to is going to give us for more information for that discussion so until next week have a wonderful easter have a wonderful rest of your day wash your hands wash your butt take care of each other be good go play some marathon i'm gonna go play some marathon after this uh and we'll see you all very very soon out there be good and peace