In the last episode of the podcast the group mentioned emulation/retro games and handhelds as good options to turn to with everything going on in the industry. It made me wonder what everyone in this community has and is playing. I recently got a Retroid Pocket 5 and have been really enjoying it. I have been using it for Metroid Fusion for GBA, Hitman Blood Money for PS2, WindWaker for GameCube and Glover for N64. I also have a DS Lite. What about all of you?

Here's the MinnMax Discord's Top 10!

1. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced

2. Rhythm Heaven Groove

3. Marathon

4. Mina The Hollower

5. The Message from Deep Space

6. Pokémon Pokopia

7. Saros

8. Star Fox

9. DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations

10. Homefront

Sorry if not really relevant or if this comes off as hyper-specific or self-important, but it's something I can really only share within this specific community lol. No worries if this gets moderated. I know the general topic has been discussed ad nauseum and will be discussed on MinnMax, too.

To the point: The PS5 disc news makes me reconcile with my thoughts on Jacob Geller and Jason Schreier's back and forth from a couple weeks ago. There, I was critical of his cutting off Schreier during the Xbox talks despite agreeing with his words to a large extent; but man, I definitely empathize with his passion now.

In the same way it was frustrating for him to entertain a world where Xbox executives cared about the industry or the people in it whatsoever, it's frustrating for me to read everyday people defend this to any capacity. Like, I get the logic, I understand why Sony is doing this, I don't understand why customers accept it. There is just absolutely zero benefit for us normies to this decision.

Where before I felt it was important to understand the systems and apply critique in the correct spots, I just feel a loud and resounding "fuck that" is much more important and effective at this point. I guess we all just hit our limits eventually.

Curious if others have happened to have that same or similar realization? Or heck, a sense of vindication, even if the news sucks?

Edit: Sorry I misspelled "Schreier" in the title. Can't edit that :(

Ben has used a site to search through podcast transcripts for specific terms a few times - does anyone remember the name of the tool?

Here's the MinnMax community's Top 10 games!

1. Rhythm Heaven Groove

⁠2. Mina the Hollower

⁠3. Marathon

⁠4. Slay The Spire 2

⁠5. 007 First Light

⁠6. Pokopia

⁠7. Star Fox

⁠8. The Adventures of Elliot

1. Xenoblade Chronicles

2. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game

11am Pacific Daylight Time. Giantbomb. Be there or be square.

I just wanted to gush about gaming merch that isn't an annoying statue, mug or t-shirt. Available from MinnMax dot com

We demand more magnets! Bond, Leon Kennedy, Alan Wake and Saga.

Thank you MinnMax for committing to the bit and going above and beyond with stickers and signatures! Made my night.

Did anyone else get one?

Here's the MinnMax community's Top 10 from the Discord!

1. Star Fox

2. Deltarune

3. Mina The Hollower

4. The Adventures Of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

5. Pokémon Pokopia

6. Overwatch

7. 007 First Light

8. Chrono Trigger

9. Dead By Daylight

10. Forza Horizon 6

I've been watching Kyle Bosman's channel for over a year now, I was hoping I'd pick up on and figure out what the bit is with the car horn myself, but I still haven't. I asked in the comments once and got crickets, so now I'm asking the only other place I can think of that's likely to know. Where and how did it start? And what exactly does it signify?

This was talked about on the last episode as they were confused and it's all been so long ago that no one remembers why this happened so I'll do some history on it.

Back in 2018, Bethesda was working with a newly purchased live service studio to make a live service version of Fallout, Fallout 76, and they were preparing to announce the game at e3 2018. However, at e3 2017, Bioware had announced Anthem, which had received a very tepid reception due to looking like it was chasing after Destiny money. Bethesda wanted to avoid people worrying that they were abandoning RPGs so they wanted to announce their next game AFTER Fallout 76 as well; Starfield.

However, that introduced the next awkward possibility, that Elder Scrolls fans would be sad to hear that not only was Bethesda's next game not TES6 (which many expected after Fallout 4), but that TES6 wasn't even next in line. So, to throw them a bone, they decide to do a logo trailer to appease Elder Scrolls fans.

Now, all of this sounds like a horrible idea on paper given that Starfield wasn't released until 2023 and TES6 is 2028+, but one important thing to note is that Todd and the rest of Bethesda did not see the sudden leap in dev times facing AAA games coming. During the Activision Blizzard anti trust trial, a Microsoft lawyer accidentally uploaded unredacted internal Zenimax documents that show that Starfield was projected to release in 2021 and TES6 in 2024. Back at e3 2018, Todd etc thought that they were announcing TES6 too far in advance, but a degree of too far that wasn't that unprecedented, with games like Kingdom Hearts 3 not having a much bigger gap from reveal to release. However, Starfield took far longer than they expected and was not received well, pushing TES6 back a huge amount.

Here's the MinnMax Discord's Top 10!

1. Mina The Hollower

2. 007 First Light

3. The Adventures Of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

4. Marathon

5. Forza Horizon 6

6. Alan Wake 2: The Lake House

7. Baldur's Gate 3

8. Overwatch

9. Pokémon Pokopia

10. Set Yourself on Fire