Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from half
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm a senior writer with
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and today I'm flying by
Speaker 1: the seat of my pants, which is, you know, not
Speaker 1: nearly as efficient as flying on a seven fifty seven,
Speaker 1: which I did recently, as I have returned from Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: the city of Angels where I attended the two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen E three conference formerly known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo,
Speaker 1: and E three, for those who do not know, is
Speaker 1: all about video games and computer games in all their forms,
Speaker 1: whether they are console, PC based, handheld VR. All shapes
Speaker 1: and sizes of games are represented there and typically A
Speaker 1: three as a place where various game studios will get
Speaker 1: together and show off games that are in development. Typically
Speaker 1: they tend to be pretty close to going live, going
Speaker 1: gold as they say, and giving industry industry folks and
Speaker 1: and media people a quick early look so that they
Speaker 1: can get an appreciation for it and then hype up
Speaker 1: the games. It becomes a big marketing push for these companies.
Speaker 1: UH this year was a little different, had a bit
Speaker 1: of a change and that the organization that throws E
Speaker 1: three decided that for the first time in many years,
Speaker 1: it would open up the conference to the general public.
Speaker 1: Now you had to purchase a ticket to go, but
Speaker 1: for the first time in ages, the general public was
Speaker 1: allowed to buy tickets to attend E three, and obviously
Speaker 1: a lot of people were very eager to do because
Speaker 1: it meant getting that head start on everybody else on
Speaker 1: the coolest games and gear that we're right around the corner.
Speaker 1: As a result, E three was crazy busy, y'all. I mean,
Speaker 1: they had sixty eight thousand, four hundred attendees. So let
Speaker 1: me describe what a typical E three is like, and
Speaker 1: then try to describe what E three is like. A
Speaker 1: typical E three is crazy, busy, super crowded, partly because
Speaker 1: I think some of the people who are attending there
Speaker 1: as industry attendees. Our industry attendees only if you stretch
Speaker 1: your imagination pretty far, like their job descriptions and their
Speaker 1: job there were duties and responsibilities may only tangentially be
Speaker 1: related to video games and computer games. So as one
Speaker 1: from the media who is there to try and cover
Speaker 1: the event, it was always challenging because you had a
Speaker 1: lot of people in a limited amount of space. It
Speaker 1: takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which is
Speaker 1: a quite large building, but still a limited space, and
Speaker 1: you would have to wait, even as media for a
Speaker 1: while to get one on one time with various game titles,
Speaker 1: new pieces of equipment. If you wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: a developer or someone in marketing, it might take a
Speaker 1: little while because they're just a lot of people there.
Speaker 1: Opening it up to the public meant that there were
Speaker 1: even more people this year. And I don't want you
Speaker 1: to think that this is just Jonathan complaining that there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of commoners all around me as I
Speaker 1: regally stride through the Los Angeles Convention Center. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say that at all. They had paid for
Speaker 1: that privilege and they had every right to be there.
Speaker 1: It did make my job more challenging, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I was glad that so many people got
Speaker 1: to experience something that excited them and brought them happiness.
Speaker 1: People who are very avid gamers got that chance to
Speaker 1: do something that we in the media can do fairly frequently,
Speaker 1: and to me, that is a valuable experience. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to take anything away from it, I think
Speaker 1: that they had every right to be there based upon
Speaker 1: the rules. I don't know if the rules were necessarily
Speaker 1: the most intelligent thing to do. If you it depends
Speaker 1: on what the goal is for your conference. If the
Speaker 1: goal is to allow these various outlets, these various media
Speaker 1: outlets access to video game studios, it makes it more difficult.
Speaker 1: But if your goal is to drum up excitement in
Speaker 1: general for video games, it definitely did that. So while
Speaker 1: there were negative aspects in the sense that it was
Speaker 1: harder to get access to the people thing and games
Speaker 1: that I wanted to uh, on the flip side, people
Speaker 1: are having a good time, so I can't really complain
Speaker 1: too much. Also, there was way more programming at this
Speaker 1: year's E three than you typically would see. Normally, when
Speaker 1: you go to the E three conference, you have press
Speaker 1: events that precede the show floor being open. That's when
Speaker 1: big companies like e A, Bethesda, Microsoft, Sony, Ubi Soft, Nintendo,
Speaker 1: they'll hold these enormous events to announce gear and video
Speaker 1: games and various news items to the press. Following those
Speaker 1: press days, you then have the exhibit floor open, and
Speaker 1: that's where you get to have the hands on time
Speaker 1: with the various demos that are available, and not every
Speaker 1: game has a demo available. Sometimes all you get to
Speaker 1: see is a cinematic that gives you an idea of
Speaker 1: what the game is about and what it's game play
Speaker 1: might be like, but in many cases there are demos
Speaker 1: available for you to try out. Uh this year they
Speaker 1: also had the E three Colosseum, where there was ongoing
Speaker 1: panel discussions about game development, the rise of VR, how
Speaker 1: augmented reality is poised to make a big impact on
Speaker 1: the gaming world, where four K resolution is becoming a
Speaker 1: bigger deal. So it's a lot more information going on
Speaker 1: around the conference than you would typically see. On top
Speaker 1: of that, you had a lot of media outlets that
Speaker 1: had a consistent presence on the show floor itself. Game Spot,
Speaker 1: for example, had their own stage, I g N had
Speaker 1: their own stage. YouTube had a stage, and they were
Speaker 1: presenting content pretty much throughout the entire conference, with specific
Speaker 1: interviews and hands on time with lots of different titles,
Speaker 1: so there was no shortage of information and for the
Speaker 1: larger outlets, it probably wasn't that much more difficult than
Speaker 1: a normal E three, except if you had to go
Speaker 1: do a tour of a specific booth. You then had
Speaker 1: to try and move through these masses of people that
Speaker 1: UH didn't move particularly quickly and were challenging to get around. UH.
Speaker 1: If you were the lucky type of person who was
Speaker 1: at a stage and people came to you, life was awesome. I, however,
Speaker 1: was on my own. I didn't have a crew with me,
Speaker 1: so I was just one little person walking around big
Speaker 1: rooms filled with lots of other people, both little and
Speaker 1: much bigger than I am. And UH, it was impressive.
Speaker 1: It's always an impressive experience. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: studios that end up making very elaborate booths to draw
Speaker 1: you in. UH. One of the big titles that was
Speaker 1: on display was Shadow of War, which is the sequel
Speaker 1: to Shadow of More Door. And I'm a huge Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings fan. I have a Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings tattoo on me for goodness sakes, and I was
Speaker 1: drawn to it anyway, but I was extra drawn to
Speaker 1: it when I saw they had an enormous dragon sculpture
Speaker 1: outside and they were allowing people to get on a
Speaker 1: saddle and have their picture taken on the back of
Speaker 1: the dragon. And while I did not stand in line
Speaker 1: to play all the different demos, I did stand in
Speaker 1: line to get my picture taken on a dragon. That
Speaker 1: tells you where my priorities are. I'm not a proud man,
Speaker 1: so I would argue I'm just a boy. But I
Speaker 1: was a boy on a dragon and it was awesome.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the stuff that came
Speaker 1: out at E three and some of the things I
Speaker 1: did while I was there, the stuff I was specifically
Speaker 1: checking out. One of the big stories was that Microsoft
Speaker 1: announced the Xbox one X console. The one X console
Speaker 1: is the most powerful console on the market, at least
Speaker 1: according to Microsoft. It is uh This was the one
Speaker 1: that had been codenamed Project Scorpio, and it has some
Speaker 1: pretty hefty specs. It is largely designed to be a
Speaker 1: four K gaming machine. Four K meaning four K resolution.
Speaker 1: This is ultra high definition resolution. This is both cool
Speaker 1: and somewhat perplexing. Maybe not perplexing, but problematic, and that is,
Speaker 1: you cannot take advantage of four K resolution unless you
Speaker 1: have a four K television set. If you have a
Speaker 1: regular HD TV set ten a D resolution, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna see the benefit of four K streaming because your
Speaker 1: television is physically incapable of displaying an image at that resolution,
Speaker 1: you would have to go out and buy a four
Speaker 1: K television set, which, to p upon the brand and
Speaker 1: the size, could get pretty expensive. We're talking more than
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars in some cases, So there's that you
Speaker 1: would have to buy that set in order for you
Speaker 1: to be able to take advantage of these consoles. Right now,
Speaker 1: there's not a huge amount of ultra high definition content.
Speaker 1: So if you're buying a TV just for playing four
Speaker 1: K games and you've got the cash to do it,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. You can go out buy a four K
Speaker 1: set and buy the Xbox one X. By the way,
Speaker 1: the one S also does ultra high definition, it's just
Speaker 1: not optimized for it the way the four X is
Speaker 1: or the one X. I should say, Also, Microsoft, what's
Speaker 1: with the naming convention? We have the Xbox, the Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty, the Xbox one, the Xbox one S, and
Speaker 1: then the Xbox one X, which I argue looks like
Speaker 1: the Xbox one ten with ten as a Roman numeral.
Speaker 1: I know that you have trouble unting because Windows went
Speaker 1: from Windows eight to Windows ten, but let's get a
Speaker 1: handle on that, shall we. And I'm saying this is
Speaker 1: an Xbox fan Anyway, the one X is really geared
Speaker 1: for this four K gaming experience. If you don't have
Speaker 1: the four K television, there's not a huge number of
Speaker 1: compelling reasons to get the Xbox one X. And my
Speaker 1: question is, doesn't make sense to go ahead and buy
Speaker 1: an Xbox one X, which is going to be sold
Speaker 1: for about fos starting November seven. Does it make sense
Speaker 1: to buy one of those and then either buy a
Speaker 1: four KSE television or wait until you're ready to replace
Speaker 1: your existing TV and then buy a four K television
Speaker 1: and considerate future proofing, or by the time we see
Speaker 1: gamers start to have four K television sets as their default.
Speaker 1: Because most of us aren't replacing our TVs that frequently,
Speaker 1: it's an expensive thing to do. If you're like most
Speaker 1: people and you're not replacing your TV regularly, does it
Speaker 1: make more sense to just skip the Xbox one X
Speaker 1: until four K TVs become the new default, just like
Speaker 1: h D t V is the default. Now wait until
Speaker 1: four K becomes the new default. By then it could
Speaker 1: be possible that Microsoft will have another generation of console out,
Speaker 1: So in other words, the one X might be a
Speaker 1: stop gap and that you would buy it and it
Speaker 1: would only be the newest, hottest thing for a couple
Speaker 1: of years before the next true generational change and Xbox happens.
Speaker 1: Or are we approaching peak console performance and therefore the
Speaker 1: one X is just as good a purchase as anything
Speaker 1: else because we're not likely to see an enormous leap
Speaker 1: in technologgy beyond what the one X is capable of doing.
Speaker 1: These are difficult questions to answer. The one X will
Speaker 1: also support some VR stuff potentially in the future, so
Speaker 1: that's really cool. And uh, you know, I'm not against
Speaker 1: the Xbox one X, but I'm not. I'm not completely
Speaker 1: sold on it being the be all, end all of gaming.
Speaker 1: So Microsoft's press release where they're talking about the one X,
Speaker 1: I I thought it was neat, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that I'm going to jump out and just buy it immediately. Uh.
Speaker 1: It does have some pretty impressive specs, not as impressive
Speaker 1: as a dedicated gaming rig. If you look at the
Speaker 1: Xbox one X, it's got an eight custom core micro processor.
Speaker 1: It's based off the X eight six architecture that Intel creates.
Speaker 1: It's clocked at two point three giga hurts. That's fast.
Speaker 1: It's not as fast as what you will find in
Speaker 1: premium gaming rigs. On the PC side, it's faster than
Speaker 1: the PlayStation PlayStation has eight Jaguar core processor at two
Speaker 1: point one giga hurts um, and it has it has
Speaker 1: a a GPU that's clocked at uh one tho seventy
Speaker 1: two mega hurts as opposed to nine hundred eleven mega
Speaker 1: hurts on the PlayStation four Pro. It's got twelve gigabytes
Speaker 1: of g d d R five RAM, again compared to
Speaker 1: the PlayStation four Pro that has eight gigabytes of g
Speaker 1: d d R RAM, and it's got a memory bandwidth
Speaker 1: of three hundred and twenty six gigabytes per second, which
Speaker 1: is pretty impressive. It's also got a one terabyte hard
Speaker 1: drive and it can play four K u h D
Speaker 1: Blu Ray video. So it's definitely the most powerful console
Speaker 1: available right now, but that may not be a it
Speaker 1: it can claim for very long. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be other people working on the next big console. My
Speaker 1: other question for people would be, doesn't make sense to
Speaker 1: invest in a four K television set when there's not
Speaker 1: much other content for four K out there. You can
Speaker 1: get four K for Netflix. You can get some four
Speaker 1: K YouTube content, assuming that you have a fast enough
Speaker 1: Internet connection to pull that four K content in onto
Speaker 1: your screen. There are only a few four K optical
Speaker 1: discs out there, so that if you wanted to buy
Speaker 1: physical media and watch it in four K, there are
Speaker 1: a few examples of that, but it's not widespread at
Speaker 1: the moment. So if there's very little content out there,
Speaker 1: does it make sense to make that investment or would
Speaker 1: it make more sense to just go ahead and invest
Speaker 1: in a true gaming rig where you're building a gaming
Speaker 1: rig from scratch which can already play at four K
Speaker 1: resolutions depending upon the monitor, the display you have and
Speaker 1: can bed are ready, and also they're customizable. You can
Speaker 1: choose which options you want for your gaming rig. You
Speaker 1: just have to make sure that you're making that you're
Speaker 1: picking everything that's compatible with each other, because not all
Speaker 1: processors are compatible with all motherboards, for example. But as
Speaker 1: long as you're being careful and you're picking all the
Speaker 1: right components, you can build a really incredible gaming rig
Speaker 1: and potentially end up spending about the same amount of
Speaker 1: money you would if you were buying an Xbox one
Speaker 1: X plus a four K television set. So it just
Speaker 1: ends up creating questions about where are your priorities as
Speaker 1: far as UH games are concerned. That being said, I
Speaker 1: thought that the games that were playing on the Xbox
Speaker 1: one X looked very pretty. I didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to get a lot of hands on experience with them,
Speaker 1: and I'm also wondering what some of the games are
Speaker 1: actually about. Like there's BioWare's game Anthem was shown off
Speaker 1: a little bit with a couple of videos, but we
Speaker 1: didn't really get to learn very much about it. It
Speaker 1: does look kind of neat, and it looks like you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to play as sort of a super
Speaker 1: human like character wearing a power suit. The power suit
Speaker 1: is what appears to give you extra abilities, and it
Speaker 1: does look pretty, but I don't know much about it.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about the Player Unknowns battleground sport that's coming
Speaker 1: to the Xbox one X. So for those who don't
Speaker 1: know what Player Unknowns Battlegrounds is, it's like the movie
Speaker 1: Battle Royal or if you prefer hunger games, where as
Speaker 1: a player, you are put into an environment with up
Speaker 1: to an other players and your goal is to be
Speaker 1: the last survivor out of all one hundred and you
Speaker 1: run around looking for weapons and equipment on a map
Speaker 1: where you get an increasingly smaller amount of area to
Speaker 1: play in. The area gets restricted over time, and if
Speaker 1: you don't get to the safe zone, then you start
Speaker 1: taking damage until you die. Well, this has been out
Speaker 1: in an early build for PCs for a while. It's
Speaker 1: not a fully finished game yet, but it's been available
Speaker 1: on PCs for a while. Now, it's going to be
Speaker 1: available for the Xbox One, and um that will work
Speaker 1: not just on the Xbox one X but the other
Speaker 1: Xbox One consoles as well, So I'll probably try it.
Speaker 1: I'll be one of the bullet sponges that dies like
Speaker 1: I'm sure i'll be in the first ten percent to
Speaker 1: die on any given day. If I don't die in
Speaker 1: that first ten percent, it will only be because I
Speaker 1: lucked out and landed in an area that did not
Speaker 1: have other players in it, and I was still pretty
Speaker 1: close to the safe zone. That's the only way I
Speaker 1: can imagine not almost instantaneously dying in this game. However,
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna play it. One of the stories I
Speaker 1: thought that was hilarious was that Minecraft is getting a
Speaker 1: four K upgrade, And if you've ever played Minecraft, you
Speaker 1: know that it's a blocky game, and to think of
Speaker 1: a super duper graphics pack giving four K capability so
Speaker 1: that you get very high resolution blocky games is somewhat hilarious,
Speaker 1: but it does mean the textures and the reflections from water,
Speaker 1: those sort of effects are gonna be much more interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are some other cool games that were shown off
Speaker 1: at the Microsoft conference. Crackdown three was looking good. See
Speaker 1: if Thieves looks good, especially if you like pirates like
Speaker 1: I do. Um, And then you know, we saw some
Speaker 1: other stuff that's again not not exclusive to Xbox, like
Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed Origins. I'm not a huge Assassin's Creed fan.
Speaker 1: I think that the art is amazing. I think the
Speaker 1: gameplay is fun, but the games are so long that
Speaker 1: the gameplay gets really repetitive. And this is true for
Speaker 1: every single version of Assassin's Creed. The only one I
Speaker 1: played from start to end without taking a break was
Speaker 1: Black Flag because it was a pirate game, and as
Speaker 1: I've already asked made made clear I love pirates. So
Speaker 1: Black Flag was the only one I ever played all
Speaker 1: the way through. Origins looks pretty, but I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think that will be one that sells me on
Speaker 1: the Xbox one X. I don't think seeing it uh
Speaker 1: in that that style is definitely gonna get me on
Speaker 1: board Shadow of War, maybe because I do like the
Speaker 1: Shadow of more door games. Sony. Meanwhile, their press conference
Speaker 1: was a lot different from Microsoft's. Microsoft was traditional where
Speaker 1: people come out, they talk about games, they show a clip,
Speaker 1: maybe they show a second clip. Some other people come out,
Speaker 1: they talk about games, so on and so forth. Throughout
Speaker 1: the press conference. Sony's was essentially an hour long series
Speaker 1: of trailers for different games. Uh. They did have a
Speaker 1: couple of different surprises in there's, including the fact that
Speaker 1: they were going to have, um a a sequel two
Speaker 1: or not a sequel, I'm sorry, A reboot of Shadow
Speaker 1: of the Colossus, a very popular game for the PS two.
Speaker 1: This one's gonna be a re re remastered version of
Speaker 1: Shadow of Colossus. So if you really like that game
Speaker 1: on the PS two, good news. It's gonna be available
Speaker 1: on the PSU four Pro and it's gonna looks super pretty. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we saw some other stuff like a God
Speaker 1: of War game, which kind of falls in that same categories.
Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed. In my mind, it's a game that is
Speaker 1: fun initially but tends to get really repetitive. Um, that's
Speaker 1: maybe that's just me. Maybe it's just that the action
Speaker 1: games don't have enough variety in them for to keep
Speaker 1: my attention, but they tend to be pretty linear levels
Speaker 1: with pretty repetitive gameplay. We saw some more about PlayStation
Speaker 1: VR games VR in general at E three was a
Speaker 1: big big deal. There are a lot of different companies
Speaker 1: showing off VR experiences. Bethesda, for example, showed off VR
Speaker 1: experiences for Fallout four as well as for Doom, and
Speaker 1: both of those looked really cool. I wish I could
Speaker 1: have had a chance to get into the Fallout four
Speaker 1: VR demo because I love the Fallout series and the
Speaker 1: VR part looked pretty neat. But PlayStation's VR is probably
Speaker 1: the the bargain entry way of getting into virtual reality.
Speaker 1: So many people already have a PlayStation four that that
Speaker 1: part's not terribly expensive. The uh, you know, it's still
Speaker 1: costs quite a bit to get all the VR components,
Speaker 1: but it's less expensive than buying a gaming rig capable
Speaker 1: of running VR plus all the peripherals you would need,
Speaker 1: like an HTC Vibe or an Oculus Rift. Uh. The
Speaker 1: question is has the PSVR experience improved enough so that
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem quite as jankie. Because out of all
Speaker 1: the VR dedicated VR sets that I've heard about, the
Speaker 1: most common complaint I hear about PSVR, it's just that
Speaker 1: the actual experience of playing it can be a little rough.
Speaker 1: The tracking is not as accurate as on other systems.
Speaker 1: I do hear that it's more comfortable to wear than
Speaker 1: a lot of other systems are, but that's less accurate,
Speaker 1: and that's problematic from anything that's a virtual reality game. Uh.
Speaker 1: We saw a PlayStation for exclusive that I actually think
Speaker 1: is interesting enough to possibly make me buy a p
Speaker 1: S four, which is called Detroit Become Human. This one
Speaker 1: I like because it follows a plot that I find
Speaker 1: very interesting, the idea of an android based revolution. Androids
Speaker 1: that feel that they have been mistreated and they have
Speaker 1: no representation are rebelling against their human creators. This is
Speaker 1: a theme we see throughout science fiction. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can watch the movie Blade Runner and you can get
Speaker 1: a feel for this kind of thing. But it looks
Speaker 1: really nice. I don't know how it plays, didn't get
Speaker 1: my hands on it. And spider Man. Spider Man for
Speaker 1: the PlayStation four looks amazing and I'm I say that
Speaker 1: as someone who cautions people against licensed games, because often
Speaker 1: those games tend to be not great. Like we get
Speaker 1: some good ones. The Batman Arkham series is legitimately a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Most of the Lego series are legitimately
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, at least for a while. But
Speaker 1: for all of those, you get nine versions of Superman
Speaker 1: sixty four, which is legitimately the least fun a person
Speaker 1: can have while playing a console, except for maybe if
Speaker 1: they're playing ET, which was also a licensed property and
Speaker 1: was terrible. So that was Microsoft and Sony. I got
Speaker 1: more to say about E three, but before I jump
Speaker 1: into all of that, let's take a quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. None of that covered Microsoft and Sony.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the developers that were out
Speaker 1: there and some of the stuff they showed off. So
Speaker 1: one of the big ones would be UBI Soft, and
Speaker 1: I've talked a little bit about some of the stuff
Speaker 1: Ubi Soft showed off because they were also featured in
Speaker 1: the other press releases. But one of the moments of
Speaker 1: E three that I thought was really entertaining is that
Speaker 1: E three is a place where video game producers can
Speaker 1: become like rock stars. And one of the rock stars
Speaker 1: that got a huge ovation was Shi Ghetto Miyamoto, who
Speaker 1: is the guy behind Mario. I mean, Miyamoto is beloved
Speaker 1: in gaming circles, particularly fans of Nintendo love Miyamoto, and
Speaker 1: Miyamoto came out during Ubisoft's press event. In fact, he
Speaker 1: was the He helped kick off the event to introduce
Speaker 1: a game called Mario plus Rabid Kingdom Battle, which is
Speaker 1: a mash up between the Nintendo Mario series and the
Speaker 1: Raving Rabbits series. And Rabbits are sort of these chaotic
Speaker 1: little critters that have this tendency to enact cartoon violence
Speaker 1: on one another. And uh, this is going to be
Speaker 1: a turn based strategy tactics game, so similar to something
Speaker 1: like a Final Fantasy or a really even more similar
Speaker 1: to something like x Com actually, but it's obviously much
Speaker 1: more cartoonish than than that. And it looked ridiculous. Whether
Speaker 1: or not I would ever pick it up, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it definitely looked like, um, a silly idea, and
Speaker 1: I'm all four silly ideas. I'd like to see that.
Speaker 1: We got to see a a virtual reality game called
Speaker 1: Transference with Elijah would as part of the game, UH
Speaker 1: promotion Elijah Wood saying that there they were trying very
Speaker 1: hard to create a VR experience, and this was supposed
Speaker 1: to allow, like It's the world is supposed to be
Speaker 1: in a world where people's thoughts and experiences can be
Speaker 1: recorded and then allow other people to experience it firsthand. Again,
Speaker 1: this is an idea and science fiction that we've seen
Speaker 1: quite a few times. Uh, there's some movies that essentially
Speaker 1: follow this line of logic where you can replace someone
Speaker 1: else's memory and experience it firsthand. In fact, you could
Speaker 1: argue that the Assassin's Creed series is ultimately a variation
Speaker 1: on this theme. But that's about all we know about Transference,
Speaker 1: apart from the fact that it's supposed to come out
Speaker 1: in the Spring of and it's supposed to be available
Speaker 1: for all the major VR platforms. We also saw a
Speaker 1: showing of Skull and Bones, one of the games about
Speaker 1: pirates that I'm very excited about. Skull and Bones is
Speaker 1: based off of the Assassin's Creed Black Flag ship combat,
Speaker 1: so in some ways it looks like it's a little
Speaker 1: limited because it's based off of leading crews of pirates
Speaker 1: on a ship against other ships. So really you control
Speaker 1: a ship you are able to you know, fire upon
Speaker 1: enemies that kind of thing. But as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, that's the extent of the game. Like it's
Speaker 1: it's tactics and arcade based. It doesn't have any other elements,
Speaker 1: like as far as I can tell, you can't board
Speaker 1: another ship and have sword fighting in it, for example,
Speaker 1: at least not the stuff I saw. But it did
Speaker 1: look kind of neat um. It looks like I'll have
Speaker 1: a competitive element where you can have leader boards about
Speaker 1: who are the Gray as Pirates on the Seven Seas,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that will become a very competitive space.
Speaker 1: But that one also caught my attention, and one that
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention. Another game that uh, I think
Speaker 1: looks really dark and compelling is Far Cry five. The
Speaker 1: Far Cry series tends to be very excessive and over
Speaker 1: the top, but this most recent one is going to
Speaker 1: be set in a rural part of Montana, and apparently
Speaker 1: the enemies you go up against are a militant group
Speaker 1: of separatists who have their own essential arsenal and are
Speaker 1: in control of this area of Montana. And there are
Speaker 1: several people who do not like that. They can't they're
Speaker 1: they're essentially being repressed, and your job is to resist
Speaker 1: against this group. It looks pretty dark, and I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to hear how reviews portray it, because playing a
Speaker 1: game that dark and politically charged, I think it has
Speaker 1: some potential hurdles to overcome. That being said, the Far
Speaker 1: Grave games are pretty well designed. I enjoyed them. I
Speaker 1: like big sandbox games. Um it would be soft surprised
Speaker 1: everybody with a sequel to a game that originally came
Speaker 1: out in two thousand three, so it was a long
Speaker 1: time coming to get a sequel fourteen years the original
Speaker 1: game being Beyond Good and Evil. So now we have
Speaker 1: Beyond Good and Evil too, And we saw a little
Speaker 1: c g I trailer of this, and it is almost
Speaker 1: impossible for me to explain what Beyond Good and Evil
Speaker 1: is all about. So I recommend if you have not
Speaker 1: seen the trailer to go check it out. See if
Speaker 1: you can track down the trailer to be Beyond Good
Speaker 1: and Evil too, so that you can get a bit
Speaker 1: of a feel for what that was all about. Bethesda
Speaker 1: would be another big name that was there. Bethesda, of course,
Speaker 1: is the game company that is behind stuff like the
Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls series, the Fallout series, both of which are
Speaker 1: uh my favorites. I love both the Elder Scrolls and
Speaker 1: the Fallout series. They're some of my favorite games of
Speaker 1: all time. The we did not see a new Fallout game,
Speaker 1: nor did we really see a new Elder Scrolls game.
Speaker 1: They are bringing uh the Skyrim chapter of Elder Scrolls
Speaker 1: to the Nintendo Switch, which I normally wouldn't even comment
Speaker 1: on except for the fact that it does have within
Speaker 1: the game the ability for you to find an outfit
Speaker 1: that is essentially Link from the Legend of Zelda series.
Speaker 1: It's not quite enough to convince me to go out
Speaker 1: and buy a Nintendo Switch just so I could play
Speaker 1: Skyrim for like the fourth time and dress up as Link,
Speaker 1: but it's darn close. They also showed off a uh uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, the Fallout four Virtual Reality Experience, which
Speaker 1: looks amazing. I would love to play a Skyrim version
Speaker 1: of of VR, but I guess I'll have to wait
Speaker 1: for that. We saw Wolfenstein Too. That was one of
Speaker 1: the most popular games on the show floor. The line
Speaker 1: for Wolfenstein Too was more than three hours long. While
Speaker 1: I was walking around, I did not get in line
Speaker 1: for it. I had to do a lot of other things,
Speaker 1: but I got to see it, uh, and I hope
Speaker 1: that all the people who were in line had a
Speaker 1: chance at playing it, because that's a long time to
Speaker 1: wait for anything. They also announced that the area of
Speaker 1: their their Elder Scrolls universe, marrow Wind, would be coming
Speaker 1: to Elder Scrolls Online, and they showed off an expansion
Speaker 1: that allows multiplayer combat where it's team based and it
Speaker 1: would be teams of four, so you could have three
Speaker 1: teams of four, four versus four versus four playing in
Speaker 1: object oriented game types on the Elder Scrolls platform. And
Speaker 1: so I got to try it, and that was one
Speaker 1: of the few games I had a hand held experience with,
Speaker 1: like I actually got to sit down and play hands
Speaker 1: on experience, I should say, uh. And it was fun,
Speaker 1: mostly because my team won because it was captured the
Speaker 1: flag and the other teams all thought of it as deathmatch,
Speaker 1: so they just ran to the middle of the map
Speaker 1: and started shooting everybody whereas I ran around the edge
Speaker 1: of the map, picked up flags and brought them back
Speaker 1: to my base. So it turns out that I am
Speaker 1: elite Elder Scrolls Online player as long as no one
Speaker 1: is paying attention to what the actual objective is of
Speaker 1: the game. Once they pay attention to the objective. I
Speaker 1: am no longer a contender, but for a brief while
Speaker 1: I was on top and it was glorious. Another company
Speaker 1: that had big event, in fact they had the earliest
Speaker 1: one was e A, where we got to see stuff
Speaker 1: like battle Grounds one DLC, which would put you in
Speaker 1: the Russian theater for battlegrounds, and that's kind of neat
Speaker 1: new maps and new weapons for battlegrounds if you are
Speaker 1: into that massive multiplayer competitive approach. Uh. They showed off
Speaker 1: some sporting titles, which is par for the course for
Speaker 1: e A, and I used part for the course correctly. There.
Speaker 1: It's a sporting term, y'all. Including a story mode for Madden.
Speaker 1: So if you were just always wanted to pick up
Speaker 1: a copy of Madden but you felt like there wasn't
Speaker 1: a strong enough single player campaign, I guess that's the
Speaker 1: solution for you. Uh. It's not really my thing, so
Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't get too snarky. They also showed
Speaker 1: off Anthem. They showed off the fact that you'll be
Speaker 1: able to play as characters from all three of the
Speaker 1: trilogies of Star Wars in Battle Front to the first
Speaker 1: battle Front focused on the original trilogy episodes four through
Speaker 1: six for those keeping count, but the Battlefront two game
Speaker 1: will allow you to play as units and characters from
Speaker 1: all three of the series. So if you were just
Speaker 1: dying to control a battle droid for the prequels, first
Speaker 1: of all, I don't even know you anymore, But second
Speaker 1: of all, you'll be able to do it in Battlegrounds
Speaker 1: two or battle Front two, I should say, not Battlegrounds.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing about these games, y'all is that
Speaker 1: the names started getting real confusing, especially if you are
Speaker 1: sleep deprived and on East Coast time but trying to
Speaker 1: deal with West coast schedules. I found that to be
Speaker 1: rather challenging. Uh So those were like the big press events.
Speaker 1: Nintendo had a pre recorded event that was not officially
Speaker 1: part of the three. They've they've kind of pulled away
Speaker 1: from E three for the last couple of years, but
Speaker 1: they did announce some stuff like Rocket League is coming
Speaker 1: to Switch. Rocket League is a fun car game where
Speaker 1: you're essentially playing soccer but with the rocket cars. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's gonna come to the Nintendo Switch and it's going
Speaker 1: to be a cross platform game. Just like Minecraft. These
Speaker 1: are cross platform games that will allow people on different
Speaker 1: platforms to play with each other. So if You're on
Speaker 1: a Nintendo Switch and I'm on my Xbox, we can
Speaker 1: each play Rocket League against each other even though we're
Speaker 1: using different platforms. Same thing with Minecraft. The only group
Speaker 1: to stay out of this is Sony. Sony did not
Speaker 1: agree to do cross platform gaming, and there the reason
Speaker 1: that they gave was that they didn't want to subject
Speaker 1: their players to harmful gaming experiences, essentially saying that the
Speaker 1: people playing Minecraft are young and they didn't want them
Speaker 1: running into all the ne'er do wells who are on
Speaker 1: Xbox Live. But if Nintendo is cool with it, and
Speaker 1: Nintendo is super protective of their users, I am very
Speaker 1: curious if that's actually PlayStation's strategy or if it is
Speaker 1: as I suspect a different reason for not getting into
Speaker 1: cross platform, which would be Sony wants to lock people
Speaker 1: into their platform and their experiences because one of the
Speaker 1: most valuable tools you have selling any sort of console
Speaker 1: is what do your friends have. If all of your
Speaker 1: friends have the PS four, then you're more likely to
Speaker 1: buy a PS four because you want to be able
Speaker 1: to play with your friends. So that's what you need.
Speaker 1: If everything's cross platform, you could buy whatever console you want,
Speaker 1: and if you don't want a PS four, you could
Speaker 1: go out and get an Xbox One or a Nintendo
Speaker 1: Switch or a PC and you can still play because
Speaker 1: the games you're playing across platform. Sony not playing ball
Speaker 1: with that tells me that maybe they want to try
Speaker 1: and hold onto exclusivity and keep their ecosystem closed so
Speaker 1: that they can maintain a market advantage that way. That
Speaker 1: only works for so long, because eventually gamers will say,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to play with my friends
Speaker 1: no matter what they're on, and there's a chance that
Speaker 1: Sony could lose uh some market share because of that.
Speaker 1: One way to combat that is to come out with
Speaker 1: really good exclusive games, and Sony is really good at that.
Speaker 1: A lot of the exclusive titles for PlayStation are very
Speaker 1: compelling games that you cannot get anywhere else. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what exclusive means, and that helps Sony maintain its
Speaker 1: position in the market, even if these other decisions are
Speaker 1: more questionable. Getting back to Nintendo, they announced some more
Speaker 1: of the titles you would expect, stuff like Kirby and
Speaker 1: Pokemon and Metroid and a Yoshi game. Uh. So a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that you would you would totally anticipate
Speaker 1: from Nintendo, including some stuff that I didn't necessarily anticipate,
Speaker 1: like downloadable content packs for Legend of Zelda Breath of
Speaker 1: the Wild. Uh. I'm not familiar with Nintendo releasing that
Speaker 1: many DLC packs. That's something I I'm used to for computers,
Speaker 1: for Xbox and for Sony, So to see Nintendo get
Speaker 1: into this game is interesting. I don't know how long
Speaker 1: they've been doing that. Um, I have not been keeping
Speaker 1: track of them as much as I should have. But
Speaker 1: these DLC content packs are going to be part of
Speaker 1: the nineteen dollars and nine nine cent Expansion Pass, so
Speaker 1: you get the Master Trials on June and the Champions
Speaker 1: Ballad uh and then that will be Champions Ballot will
Speaker 1: be sometime around the holiday season. And they showed some ambo's,
Speaker 1: so if you're someone who collects ambos, you can totally
Speaker 1: get your amibos. I'm not an Amibo person. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot. I don't have an active
Speaker 1: Nintendo system right now. The last one I had was
Speaker 1: the original WE and I haven't had it hooked up
Speaker 1: to my television for a very long time. So it
Speaker 1: was an interesting, uh presentation, but it didn't have a
Speaker 1: whole lot of applicability to me. Now I've got more
Speaker 1: to say about my specific experiences at E three, but
Speaker 1: before I jump into that, let's take another quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Alright, So, like I said, I
Speaker 1: didn't really get a chance to get a lot of
Speaker 1: hands on time with the various video games while I
Speaker 1: was there. So what did I do? I mean, I
Speaker 1: was out there for several days, right, I focused a
Speaker 1: lot on hardware. So one of the things I wanted
Speaker 1: to do was meet up with people to potentially talk
Speaker 1: about developments in hardware and maybe even line up some
Speaker 1: chances for future episodes of tech Stuff where we'd have
Speaker 1: a deeper dive on things. One of the first companies
Speaker 1: I went to was alien Ware, which is a division
Speaker 1: of Dell Computers that was acquired by Dell UH more
Speaker 1: than a decade ago, and last year alien Ware celebrated
Speaker 1: its twentieth anniversary. The company has been around, obviously for
Speaker 1: twenty years, building gaming rigs for people that have a
Speaker 1: certain aesthetic, and that aesthetic is flashy and showy, and
Speaker 1: they also have some pretty beefy gaming rigs. Arguably, you
Speaker 1: could build a machine just as capable or faster than
Speaker 1: an alien Ware machine, but you're not going to get
Speaker 1: that same aesthetic, and you're not you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to do a lot of that work yourself. So
Speaker 1: if you have the money and the desire and you
Speaker 1: find the alien Ware aesthetic pleasing, it's an interesting approach
Speaker 1: and I like the alien Ware designs. So I went
Speaker 1: there to talk with some of the executives over at
Speaker 1: alien Ware, and we just kind of had a discussion
Speaker 1: about where the company has come from, where it's going.
Speaker 1: And my hope is that in the near future will'll
Speaker 1: be able to have an interview and do a a
Speaker 1: history or story of alien Ware episode. Uh. The big
Speaker 1: machine they were showing off was the alien Ware Area
Speaker 1: fifty one, which was a monster. It is a triangular
Speaker 1: based case with a huge computer inside of it, and
Speaker 1: it was triangular partly to allow for better airflow for
Speaker 1: the cooling purposes of the machine, because obviously with real
Speaker 1: powerful gaming rigs you've got advanced GPUs and a blistering
Speaker 1: fast CPU in there. All of those things generate heat,
Speaker 1: and the more heat they generate, the more, it can
Speaker 1: negatively impact the various components inside the computer, so you
Speaker 1: have to have a very effective heat management system. And
Speaker 1: part of it was just the design of this case,
Speaker 1: which also just made it a little like nothing else.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big triangle. Uh. Alien Ware in
Speaker 1: general was pretty cool. They also came out with some
Speaker 1: gaming keyboards, some gaming mice, some displays, so this was
Speaker 1: the first time they had come out with some peripherals
Speaker 1: in quite a few years. Uh. And the peripherals were
Speaker 1: kind of neat too. So I had a good time
Speaker 1: over at their booth, and I'm hoping I can do
Speaker 1: an episode specifically about alien Ware in the not too
Speaker 1: distant future. I also got a chance to check out
Speaker 1: some interesting work in motion capture or mo cap. Typically,
Speaker 1: if you're doing mo cap, the way it has normally
Speaker 1: been done is you go into a big sound studio
Speaker 1: and you outfit a person wearing a costume that has
Speaker 1: a bunch of points of reference on the costume itself.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever looked at behind the scenes footage
Speaker 1: of stuff like Lord of the Rings or Planet of
Speaker 1: the Apes, you've probably seen this where actors are wearing
Speaker 1: these suits with lots of different uh dots usually or
Speaker 1: little balls on them to act as points of reference
Speaker 1: for the camera. The camera records the actor's movements and
Speaker 1: that information gets sent to a computer that analyze rises
Speaker 1: the movement of all those individual points of reference and
Speaker 1: then translates that into an animation that you can apply
Speaker 1: to a different kind of character. So, for example, with
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, Gollum, who was portrayed by Andy Serkis,
Speaker 1: would was a computer generated character that was animated based
Speaker 1: upon the actual movements of Andy Circus as he moved
Speaker 1: around inside this motion capture suit. Well, the motion capture
Speaker 1: suit I got to see at E three doesn't use
Speaker 1: cameras at all. It's not an optical based system. Instead,
Speaker 1: it uses magnets and magnetic fields, and it measures the
Speaker 1: fluctuations of magnetic fields to track movement and thus be
Speaker 1: able to capture movement. And one of the biggest challenges
Speaker 1: that these sort of systems have is that while they
Speaker 1: are cheaper and more accessible than optical based systems, you
Speaker 1: don't need an enormous studio in order to capture that
Speaker 1: information shan because they're magnetic and magnetic fields can interfere
Speaker 1: with one another. You could get errors in your data collection,
Speaker 1: so you get stuff like drift. Drift is when, as
Speaker 1: you are holding a position, your magnets start to assume
Speaker 1: that other magnetic fields are actually the Earth's magnetic field.
Speaker 1: It would be like having a compass. If a compass
Speaker 1: is sitting by itself and there's no magnetic field that's
Speaker 1: interfering with it, the needle is going to point to
Speaker 1: magnetic north. That's the purpose of a compass. But if
Speaker 1: you bring an actual magnet close to the compass, as
Speaker 1: it gets closer, that magnetic field is strong enough to
Speaker 1: deflect the needle so that it's pointing towards your magnet,
Speaker 1: not towards magnetic north, and it quote unquote assumes that
Speaker 1: the magnet you're holding is magnetic north. The same thing
Speaker 1: is true of magnetic motion capture. That these different components
Speaker 1: on the suit itself, plus things that are in your
Speaker 1: environments such as metal girders or a steel ladder, can
Speaker 1: affect what they consider to be their orientation, so the
Speaker 1: animation could come out looking really weird. A person's pelvis
Speaker 1: might be facing front and back instead of left and right,
Speaker 1: for example. Because of this drift well, the company had
Speaker 1: talked to had developed software that helps correct for those problems,
Speaker 1: so that while the technology itself still works the same,
Speaker 1: on the software side, it can be reinterpreted so that
Speaker 1: you don't get those errors. I'm hoping that I can
Speaker 1: talk with them for a future episode as well to
Speaker 1: really talk about the design and challenges of magnetic motion capture,
Speaker 1: because it's a really cool technology and I want you
Speaker 1: guys to learn more about it. I also saw a
Speaker 1: lot of fabric computer interfaces, things like gloves that you
Speaker 1: could put on and through just your control you could
Speaker 1: have interactions with various types of software. This is not
Speaker 1: that different from again, optical based systems, where you have,
Speaker 1: say an infrared camera pointing at yourself. You wave in
Speaker 1: front of the infrared camera and it's able to interpret
Speaker 1: your motions and put that as commands within a video game.
Speaker 1: But in this case, you're talking about using actual fabric
Speaker 1: that has sensors woven into it that we'll pick up
Speaker 1: all that information all on its own. The advantage to
Speaker 1: that is that you don't have to worry about a
Speaker 1: camera facing in on your gaming area all the time.
Speaker 1: There are certain concerns about privacy when it comes to
Speaker 1: these optical based systems and how much information is actually
Speaker 1: being transmitted and who can see it. If you're using
Speaker 1: something that's using an actual physical piece of fabric as
Speaker 1: opposed to a camera, then whenever it's not in use,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about it sending data somewhere
Speaker 1: that you don't know about. You don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about being in a intrusion on your privacy. So it's
Speaker 1: a just your command system. And you might argue, we've
Speaker 1: already got solution for that, but it's a different approach
Speaker 1: to that solution, and I found that really interesting. I
Speaker 1: also had a chance to talk with one of the
Speaker 1: organizers of Child's Play, which is a charitable effort from
Speaker 1: the Penny Arcade expo folks that tries to raise money
Speaker 1: to provide games and game systems to hospitals to help
Speaker 1: kids who are in for therapeutic treatment, who are you know,
Speaker 1: have been hospitalized. And the research has gone beyond just
Speaker 1: let's raise money to throw an Xbox or p S
Speaker 1: four or something at these hospitals. It has reached a
Speaker 1: point where they're actually looking at therapeutic games, games that
Speaker 1: have been shown to help lower a child's anxiety levels,
Speaker 1: so that the child doesn't experience pain as much or
Speaker 1: is able to calm down before going in for a
Speaker 1: surgical procedure. I found that fascinating, So I hope to
Speaker 1: have a future episode with the organizers of Child's Play
Speaker 1: to really talk about the evolution of that program and
Speaker 1: how people can get involved if they're interested. So I
Speaker 1: had a lot of opportunities to explore technology and meet
Speaker 1: with really interesting people, and to explore elements around gaming
Speaker 1: that were not directly tied to a specific video game title,
Speaker 1: and that to me was invaluable. It was a really
Speaker 1: interesting experience, and I have to say that the people
Speaker 1: at E three are probably my favorite part of any
Speaker 1: of those conferences. It's the chance to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with really smart people who are dedicating their intelligence in
Speaker 1: innovative and interesting ways that apps you never would have anticipated.
Speaker 1: That was my favorite part of the three. But that
Speaker 1: might be because I never got to play a pirate game. Anyway.
Speaker 1: That's the Jonathan Strickland E three two thousand seventeen experience.
Speaker 1: If you are interested in learning more about what happened
Speaker 1: in the three, well, they're about a billion different websites
Speaker 1: out there that have covered it. Extensively. Some of them
Speaker 1: include things like The Verge or Polygon, which is really
Speaker 1: the gaming arm of the Verge, or YouTube has hours
Speaker 1: and hours and hours of footage of developer interviews, hands
Speaker 1: on time with games. You can check all those out
Speaker 1: I g N did a huge amount of work out there. Really,
Speaker 1: your outlet of choice probably has an enormous supply of
Speaker 1: E three information. If you want to get more specifics
Speaker 1: on that. If there are any elements about three or
Speaker 1: video games in general you would like me to cover
Speaker 1: in a more focused episode of tech Stuff in the future,
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. Tell me what you want
Speaker 1: to hear, whether it's the story of how Microsoft got
Speaker 1: into the Xbox business, or the birth of the PlayStation,
Speaker 1: or the evolution of a character like Donkey Kong, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, let me know. Send me an email.
Speaker 1: My address is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter to
Speaker 1: handle at both of those is tech Stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: Remember you can watch me record these shows live, and
Speaker 1: if you're lucky, you might even see Ben Bolan accidentally
Speaker 1: burst into my studio and then curse and then run away,
Speaker 1: which totally happened today, but you didn't hear it because
Speaker 1: we edited that part out, But to see that, you
Speaker 1: need to go to twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I stream on Wednesdays and Fridays. You can go to
Speaker 1: twitch dot tv slash tech stuff to see the sched
Speaker 1: jewel there and I'll talk to you guys again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: a how stuff works dot com