905 - 08/25/24 Bobby Blackwolf Show - Amazon Games Says AI Isn't Bad, Atari 7800+ Announced

Amazon Games says that AI won't be bad because it'll just take away the boring work.

Plus, Atari wants retro fans to buy the same hardware with a different shell, and I bet it'll work.

Tonight is August 25th, 2024, and the Bobby Blackwell Show featuring your calls and chat comments is up next.

So you would say even if you...

Okay, I'll let you go. You talk.

Wow, what happened to your voice? Thank you, Skype.

So video games, that's what the show is about.

This is that one. I can't hear you better.

From Sweden.

And what's with all the Halo hate, Bob? You've been hating on Halo a lot lately.

I just don't like shooters. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I just don't like it.

Billy OK says he can't be seen in public playing games that aren't hardcore, what would people say?

And WhatUpG and Chad is once again talking about wrestling.

That's why. It's not because they hate the fans, it's more because they have to start from scratch.

Uh, hogwash later.

From a little room in Atlanta, Georgia, Bobby Blackwell.

That's right.

But we are here tonight, and we're going to talk about some gaming stuff as well as DragonCon.

But we are a podcast, and we also have a Discord server.

If you go to vognetwork.com slash Discord, you might even see some things about us at the convention during the week.

We will be back.

will be posting some pictures there and if you're trying to meet us that is a great way to get in

touch with us uh to kind of work out something that uh something that somewhere that we can meet

and uh that would be great because i would like to meet some of y'all because i am going to be

running around and i'm going to be in many different places and uh i'll talk about those

in in just a little bit because i i talked a lot about them last week but uh since then uh i have

been able to uh really like kind of finalize what i'm doing uh i was on the dragon con town hall

uh just the other night on thursday night and uh you know talked about uh artemis and and and uh

the things that i'm excited about the japanese arcades play i got a beatmania 2dx reference in

there uh for all for all the people that are bimani fans uh and uh you know talked about some

of the stuff that's going to be going on at dragon con that i'm excited about because

uh you know being promoted up to the main programming is is actually kind of a big

deal and i'm i'm hoping that i hope that it goes well i'm pretty sure it will but uh hoping that

it's really going well um so uh i do want to talk about before we get to that before we get to

dragon con we should we talk we show dragon con we talk about dragon con uh i like to sometimes

bring up things that has been said uh brought up about previous episodes and we actually had this

in our discord thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time bye

to 13x forever for this because a couple weeks ago i uh we were talking about the controllers

from a third-party control company that uh that mimic old controllers and i said i don't know how

to pronounce their name and i never really learned and it was it was explained to me that it was

pronounced like nintendo so it is 8-bit dough is who we're talking in nintendo 8-bit dough

and i'm like oh that makes sense and uh so i was like okay cool like i got it now well 13x forever

who is uh who's an amazing repository of knowledge and i'm so glad that uh they share uh that with us

when we need it i actually said it started the pronunciation of 8-bit dough started as a riff

on nintendo but then they got in hot water for being too similar

because uh i don't know if you know this nintendo is a legal department

i don't know if you know this or not or if you've ever heard of that but nintendo uh they have some

lawyers they do and uh apparently in order to distinguish themselves as far as possible

the current official guideline of this company that makes these third-party controllers

is to pronounce it 8-bit do as in scooby-doo

so either way works they are an asian company so following the typical asian rules the original

version would still be the most appropriate however they have asked to be called 8-bit do

in order to avoid the lawyers from nintendo nintendo nintendo maybe if i called them nintendo

do you think they no i don't i don't i'm not gonna i'm not gonna tempt the lawyers but so

appreciation apparently is 8-bit

do which is what I actually was saying

and I'm like is that right and that's

when we heard the 8-bit do

fifth dream says that's do do

and you can say that a lot

that is probably an evergreen response

to anything regarding Nintendo's legal

team whenever Nintendo's legal team is

mentioned

you can actually say I

think you know that's do do

is probably an appropriate response to whatever

it is that Nintendo's

legal team is in the news for

thank you so much 13x

forever for sharing that it is one of those things

like when you only ever hear it read or

you only read it you never actually hear it said

pronunciation

is hard but if they if the creator

says that something

is pronounced a specific way

I respect the creator and I do my

best to call it that

apparently everybody does too unless

they're talking about image formats and

then they're like well the creator is stupid

and doesn't know how to name

their own thing

and so I'm going to call it a

different name

but you don't do that with anything else

it's just that one thing

DJ Rama

S says 8-bit do

controllers are pretty amazing I have

three of them

says I have an NS SNES like one and it's

really great for everything yes I've actually got

the SN 30

pro is the one I have and it's a bluetooth

or wireless

so it works bluetooth

as well as

you know

I think like directly with your switch

and stuff like that so

I've got this that I got with my

for my Raspberry Pi when I had that

and it is

the SN 30 pro is basically

a Super Nintendo controller

with dual thumbsticks

is essentially what it is

and fifth stream says

yep same one but wired and the nice thing

about these this is it also

works wired so it has

a USB C port at the top

which is what you can charge it with

but also you can hardwire it to anything, and it works pretty good.

And DJRMS says, I have the Super Famicom version of that.

So you can get them in different colors.

I don't think the SN30 Pro specifically is still made.

I think they've got a different form, a new version that's got more features than this,

but I love this thing.

So 8BITDO, 8-B-I-T-D-O, and they make a lot of great controllers.

And we were talking about it because of the Doom Super Nintendo game

that Limited Run Games is coming out with that actually is an updated version

of the Super Nintendo cartridge, apparently has a controller being made by 8BITDO

that has Rumble support, and the Super Nintendo game will actually support it.

So we'll see how that works.

I actually think the SN30 Pro does have Rumble support in it

for, like, when you're using it.

On, like, emulators and stuff.

So I think it does, but I can't remember.

DarkDetsuya says, I saw a video of the new SNES version.

It looks really slick.

Well, why didn't you share that in our Discord?

Because I would have been playing it.

Because I haven't seen it.

I didn't know they put out a video.

All I know is that they put out a tweet.

And speaking of calling things the thing that, well, the creator called them tweets.

So I'm going to still call that.

But all I saw was, like, the little post, the social media post.

And I didn't see it.

I didn't see anything after that.

Anyway.

Dragon Con is next week.

We are not going to be here.

I am going to be participating in various events around the convention,

mostly on the digital media track.

But I am going to be hanging out with the video gaming track

and then on main programming for a little bit.

So I actually even haven't posted the graphic up on social media yet,

but people get to see it here first.

So this is going to be the same.

This is going to be the same graphic you're going to see on social media.

But Dragon Con starts on Thursday.

And it really starts at, like, 5 o'clock on Thursday or something like that.

So it's not all day Thursday.

There are actually people that bought badges for Thursday and are upset that,

you know, they're going to go there and nothing's going to be open

because it really starts Friday.

But there are events on Thursday night for the people that get in early.

So Thursday is actually one of my busy days.

Luckily, both events.

Are in the exact same room.

So at 5.30 p.m. in the Hilton Galleria 7 with the digital media track,

I am actually on the digital media kickoff panel.

And this is going to be streamed on Twitch and YouTube at DC Digital Media.

So you can find it there.

And I believe also on Facebook, I believe.

So they stream on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook.

So you can actually see that panel live then even if you are not at Dragon Con.

Then at 7 o'clock, not streamed.

That is our.

That is our networking event that the Voice of Geeks Network is putting on.

Introverts trying to teach people how to be extroverts.

It's going to be amazing.

But we're going to be putting that on, Rob and I,

along with some of our friends on the digital media track.

Then Saturday at 7 o'clock p.m.

Also streamed on the digital media track, Twitch and YouTube.

Creating in the Digital World.

That is going to be a panel that I am going to be on in Hilton Galleria 7.

And then on Sunday at 2.30 p.m.

I'm going to be in the Westin Peachtree Ballroom with the video gaming track.

Because I am moderating a panel with the voice actors from Mass Effect.

This is Mass Effect, a retrospective.

It's going to be featuring Mark Meir, Ash Rocha, Fred Tataskior, and Courtney Taylor.

And as far as I know, there is not a topic off the table.

We have not yet been told otherwise.

So we are still waiting on guidance.

But basically, we are going to be on the digital media track.

So we are going to be on the digital media track.

And as far as I know, there is not a topic off the table.

We are going normal in terms of what properties can be talked about

in the light of the SAG-AFTRA strike against video game companies.

We are basically going as normal until we are told otherwise.

And then if we are told otherwise, we are going to pivot.

So I get to moderate that panel with the Mass Effect voice actors.

I did get...

I got about an hour and a half through Mass Effect 2.

So I actually played some Mass Effect 2 this week on the Legendary Edition.

And if you are wondering, yes, the Legendary Edition does have the comic

that recaps the events of Mass Effect 1 unless you choose who you save

and who you choose and all that stuff.

So it does have the comic.

And then after that at 4 o'clock,

this is going to be streamed on the digital media track panels,

turning digital media skills into IRL skills.

So this is the panel Rob and I are putting together

with some other people, friends of ours.

On the digital media track about what we can learn,

what we have learned from doing the streaming and the podcasting

that you all know that you see me do every Sunday night

and put it into other areas,

either be it at work or on stage doing other events

like moderating panels with Mass Effect actors

or writing or, you know, putting in, you know,

production elements to work things.

And there's a bunch of different ways we can put it.

A bunch of different angles.

We can go with what skills are transferable to creating digital content

and then what things are transferable out and into the real world

and that can help you in your professional career

if you don't make streaming and podcasting your career,

which I do not.

I do not do this for a living.

I do other things for a living.

But there are things that I've learned and I hone doing this

that help me in my professional world.

And then at the bottom,

because I kind of didn't know if I was going to do this or not.

But if you notice,

at the bottom of this graphic,

it also says,

also welcoming Catherine Tate to the stage

in the Marriott Imperial Ballroom on Friday at 2.30 p.m.

and Sunday at 5.30 p.m.

And I guess maybe this is kind of also like

me trying to get validation that this is the right way to phrase it

and the right thing to do

because I didn't want to list those as events I am appearing at

because Catherine,

Catherine Tate's not going to use a moderator.

Catherine Tate is,

she's a very well-known actress,

especially in the UK.

She portrayed Donna Noble.

She was a companion on Doctor Who.

She was on,

I think the seventh season of The Office here in the US.

She's had her own show on television in the UK.

She's had her own stage show.

She's very,

and she's a standup comedian.

So she does not like the sitting behind a desk

like it's a,

like it's a press conference.

She doesn't like that.

So she just runs the room herself

and she gets the questions

and it's basically just her on stage and that's it.

So I didn't want to list that

even though technically I am listed in the program

as being on those.

I didn't want to like list it on my social media

because I didn't want people,

nobody's going to go to see me,

but I didn't want anybody to go to see me.

And then I'm like,

I'm on stage for 20 seconds and then I'm gone.

So I put it down at the bottom

because like it is cool.

It is something I get to do,

but I didn't list it as a panel.

So it looks like I'm only doing five things,

but I'm actually doing seven.

And you never know.

Anything can happen with any of the existing moderators.

We are all basically on call.

If another moderator can't make it to a panel,

which,

you know,

happens,

things happen at con.

You just can't make it to something.

And so I may be doing some other things

on extremely short notice,

so that's going to be a lot of fun.

So if you are going to be at Dragon Con,

that is where you're going to be able to find me.

You can also find me in the app as Bobby Blackwolf,

as a speaker,

and you can see all of the things that I'm going to be at.

The digital media panels are going to be the easiest to find me,

except for the Sunday one,

because the Sunday one,

I'm going to be running from a panel

and then I'm going to be running to another one right after.

But especially that Thursday night event,

if you are getting in early,

you are getting in Thursday

and you're there for the seven o'clock,

that is literally a networking event.

It's not really a panel.

It is going to be a networking event.

People are going to be talking with each other.

And so that's going to be the best place to meet with us.

So some of those panels,

I actually do denote on the social media posts

that the people on podcasts will be able to find.

I do denote which ones are streaming on Twitch and YouTube.

And the Catherine Tate ones,

if you do have a Dragon Con TV membership,

which is a stream,

streaming service that basically you can stream live panels

from Dragon Con and it is a paid service.

It is not free.

I believe the Catherine Tate ones

will be streaming live on Dragon Con TV.

I don't think the Mass Effect one will be,

but I don't know.

So if you want to watch those

and you are not coming to Dragon Con,

you are absolutely free to get Dragon Con TV

and pay for it.

It's so you can see all the panels,

all the great actor panels that are going on

at Dragon Con,

but the digital media track,

the ones that are on Twitch and YouTube

at DC Digital Media,

those are not behind a paywall.

Those are free.

You can watch them

and all the content that the digital media track

is putting on in two rooms,

they're getting two channels.

They have DC Digital Media and DC Digital Media 2.

So that is where I'm going to be next week

and why there's going to be no show.

Let's talk about the news from this week.

Shall we?

Let's do it.

So obviously I am a huge fan of AI and video games.

As we all know, I'm actually not.

I did not get put on any panels about AI.

I don't know if you noticed that.

Last year at Dragon Con,

I was on like two different panels

and two different fan tracks about AI

and they all thought I was going to be like

the person that liked AI

because I'm a software developer by trade

and they didn't expect me to also hate AI

just as much as they did.

But anyway,

some of you does not hate AI

and wants to let you to know that AI is okay.

It's okay.

Don't worry about it.

Amazon Games,

which yes,

is still around.

Video Game Chronicle reports

that Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann

has said that he believes the addition of AI

to game development workflows

won't impact jobs

partly because we don't really have acting.

Hartmann made the comments

in a new interview with IGN

when he was asked about a major performance strike

recently called by the SAG-AFTRA union

after it failed to negotiate acceptable protections

around the use of AI for its members.

He replied, quote,

I mean, I got to be careful what is here

because we are a big company

and have to deal with all those organizations

so I don't really want to get in the middle of it.

But when we talk about AI,

first of all,

hopefully it will help us to have

new gameplay ideas

which has nothing to do

with taking work away from anyone, unquote.

Rob Roberts says,

Bobby Blackwolf here to confirm

after playing 90 minutes of Mass Effect 2,

there is no acting in video games.

Hey now.

S. Gernerman says it won't impact jobs

because the jobs were already impacted.

But here, like,

here's the thing.

It's,

it will help us have new gameplay ideas

how will AI, like,

I guess it's,

hey, AI, chat GPT,

come up with a new gameplay idea for me.

When you used to, you know,

pay people to think tank new gameplay ideas

and design and debate about new gameplay ideas,

that used to be a job that humans did,

but now we're going to have AI

do the thinking of the new gameplay ideas.

I, you know, which is,

which is,

game design.

And people have gotten degrees in game design.

And what he's saying is,

this is not going to impact jobs.

It's only going to take the game designer's job.

That's all it's going to do.

Because it's not going to take work away from anyone.

If you take the game design away from the game designer

and give it to the AI,

you're not taking work away from the game designer.

He continues, quote,

and especially for games,

we don't really have acting.

The majority of the team sits in programming

and that's not going to go away

because that's all about innovation.

If it takes something,

it will be the really boring parts, unquote.

Now,

while that's a great thought,

oh, it's going to take the boring tedium stuff.

It's great in the short term.

Where that's going to hurt,

in the long term,

is the fact that junior developers

or junior programmers

or junior artists

or junior writers,

what they are given

in order to learn

and in order to hone their skills

are the boring parts.

That's what you give the juniors.

That's what you give the interns.

That,

that,

that is how people learn.

When I was learning

a new kind of,

kind of a new platform

as a programmer,

I was obviously not just out of college.

This was, you know,

later on in my career,

but in order to learn

the idiosyncrasies of the platform,

what one of the other developers

of the company did

was he gave me his,

what we're going to call unit tests.

And if you're a programmer,

you know what I'm talking about.

If you're not a programmer,

I'll explain,

I'll explain very quickly

what unit tests are

and try to not talk over your head.

So a unit test is a

block of code

that run,

that executes

a certain block of code

that is actually real.

And it makes sure

that it does what you expect.

It'll send in the proper inputs

and it'll,

it'll check to make sure

that it's getting the proper outputs.

It'll send in bad inputs

and it'll check to make sure

that it's getting the correct error back.

That is a unit test.

They are tedious.

They suck.

They actually sometimes take longer to write

than the code you actually wrote.

And everybody says,

I can't wait for AI

to do my unit test for me.

But I learned so much

about how the platform,

how the platform works

that I was developing on

because I wrote the unit tests

for this other block of code

that I didn't write.

And I got to learn

how the platform worked.

If we took those away,

if AI did your unit test for you,

A, you don't know if they're all accurate

unless you look them over yourself.

But B,

now you've taken away the boring work

that somebody can use to learn

what you're trying to do

so they can,

and then graduate up

to doing the not so boring work.

That's why I always had an issue

with them saying,

oh, we're taking, you know,

like the barks

when Ubisoft had their UI generator

for writers

that would actually do the barks,

which are like the chatter

that the NPCs do

while you walk down a street

in Assassin's Creed.

That's what junior writers used to write

were those barks.

And now they're like,

well, now we don't need to have

the junior writers do them anymore.

We just have the AI do it

because the way it worked

is the junior writers wrote the barks

and then the senior writers

would check their work.

And now instead of the senior writers

checking the work of junior writers,

the senior writers are checking

the work of AI

and the company saves money.

So unfortunately,

you don't get senior writers

unless you are a junior writer first.

QuestBuster says,

GameGPT, please recycle Ubisoft

open world template 454

and overlay it with the winning theme

from the last survey.

And as Shermat says,

so instead of someone

experience handling it

and entry level person

will be charged in charge

of making sure the AI

doesn't make something

like a derpy Ronaldo statue,

Ronaldo, the soccer player.

So you're not cultivating anything.

You're not growing anyone into anything.

So yeah, future will be weird.

We see this a little bit already

in terms of not teaching people

and not training people up.

And I'm going to talk,

I'm going to be talking about kids.

So, so kids, you know,

and maybe teenagers.

And, you know, they're not all bad.

Like this is not a kids are dumb.

Kids are bad thing

or anything like that.

But we all started to believe that,

well, kids know computers

and technology more than we do.

So we don't need to be, you know,

we don't need to bore them

with class, you know, things in class

because kids, they just know

how to work it.

And so what you're finding now

is that a lot of young,

not, not every,

but,

but many kids today

don't know how their computer works.

They don't know how to use a computer.

They don't really know

how to use a phone,

their, their, their, their phone.

They know how to use the apps

on the phone

because we stopped teaching them

how to use a computer.

We stopped teaching them

how computers work.

We, because we just like,

well, they know it, they're kids.

The young ones already,

already always know it.

So,

you actually now have kids

that don't know

how to do

basic troubleshooting things

on their computer

because we all assumed

they knew it.

And now that it's been

obfuscated enough,

Apple has obfuscated

a lot of things,

but so has Windows,

so has Android.

You don't need

to tinker with your computer.

You don't need to know

how it works to get it to work.

Now it just works.

So they stop teaching it

because it's not useful anymore.

And now we've got a lot of kids

that literally don't know

how to use a computer.

They're on their phones all the time.

They use technology all the time

and they know how to use

the apps that they're using,

but they don't know how to repair it.

They don't even know how to,

you know, do any kind of

basic troubleshooting on a computer,

which is what used to be like

the adults didn't know

and they would call their kids

and the kids would know it.

Well, now the adults know it

and the kids don't

because the kids were never taught.

So QuestBuster says it's funny.

There's a theme in Warhammer 40k

and MechWarrior

where technology advanced to the point

where certain elements of it

are so complex

that those who can keep it working

are regarded in your religious context

because no one else understands it

or can understand it.

The Breakman, hang on, hang on.

Breakman has a comment.

Breakman has a comment

and I'm going to figure it.

Okay, so here we go.

Here we go.

I'm going to hit this button here

so we can do this.

So this is a Breakman comment.

In a desolate world

only one man stands against

the greatest threat

humanity has ever faced.

The AI wants to destroy us all

but fear not.

One man will stand up to them

and protect us all.

His name is Bobby Blackwolf.

SJRoman is like,

oh no, is a Breakman his right alert?

No, Breakman is not right.

But, you know, I just,

I wanted to do that.

DJRomanS says,

Bobby, every class of internet

trainees and new hires I teach,

most of them do not know

how to shut down

or restart a PC or a Mac.

That's why I'm then,

when we were younger

and even though I know I'm older,

even people that are in their 30s

were all taught

how to do like basic computer things.

Then we stopped doing that

because everybody knows how to do it.

And,

and so AI is going to be doing the same thing.

So where it's tying into the story

that's on the screen right now

is that, you know,

we are now going to stop teaching people

how to make games

because we're just going to say,

well, the AI is going to make the game

and you're just going to make sure

that the AI doesn't screw it up.

But if you don't know how to make the game,

we're going to start having people

that don't understand how to actually do it

because all they're going to be taught is,

well, here's how,

here's what you prompt the AI

to get it to do that.

The thing that is interesting

about the revolution of AI and GPT,

which is the scary part of this,

maybe scary is a very harsh word,

but the worrying part of this is

if you didn't know what open AI's big innovation was

in order to get chat GPT to be what it is,

because we have had generative AI

and predictive technology

in the context for decades.

ELISA was a big thing in the 80s,

which was the same type of thing.

And language models existed for a long time.

You had the prediction on your phone.

When you would type a word,

you could just type the center thing

and it would predict what you're saying.

So what open AI did,

their big innovation was A,

having it have a much larger data set

that it's pulling from,

but there's a second thing

that they did that you don't hear talked about a lot,

but it was the big innovation

that put them over the top.

They introduced randomness

because if they didn't introduce any randomness

into what it was spitting back out,

it sounded too dry.

And so open AI's big innovation

was sometimes not saying the thing

that would most likely follow.

Sometimes go off in a different direction

and they intended to be just in tone.

You know, so it's not writing in a stuffy language

like most things it's been trained on.

Sometimes it'll go off

and respond in a more relaxed manner.

And that's because of the randomness,

which is why it will give you wrong answers sometimes

is because it's sometimes randomly deciding,

do I give answer A and answer B?

It doesn't know that answer A is the right one

and answer B is the wrong one.

It just knows that there are two answers

and it may think, well, most of the time we're in,

you know, answer A is what is said,

but I'm going to roll the dice.

Oh, I'm going to give you answer B instead.

That's why I kind of worry about the AI

and that's why sometimes you can have an AI,

the same AI trained on the same data,

give it the same problem

and it might actually give you multiple different answers

and not all of them are right

or maybe none of them are right.

In an early age,

earlier response, we're going back to this article,

Hartman said that he hoped the introduction

of artificial intelligence could speed up the development

of video games because it, quote,

takes way too long, like five years per game.

Ideally, we would like to get it down to three years

so we can iterate more,

which will then bring the budgets down a little bit.

I don't think they're really going to get cheaper,

but at least you fail faster

and then you can go on and on

until you find the right thing, unquote.

So Amazon Games says,

AI is fine, y'all, you know, don't worry about it.

What games do they have?

Like, because they're like,

our games don't really have actors.

Amazon Games.

Like, is there something that actually says,

like, what games they have put out

that don't have any, let's see here.

Untitled Lord of the Rings MMORPG.

Untitled story-driven role-playing game.

Untitled narrative-led open-world driving game.

None of those apparently have actors,

according to,

uh, Amazon Games boss, Christoph Hartmann.

They don't really have acting.

New World is probably the game

that a lot of people are talking about.

Uh, yeah, Robert says,

that MMO that came out like a flash in the pan,

New World.

Uh, I mean, I'm, so,

I guess New World didn't have anybody act in it?

Is that what it was?

QuestBuzz says it had cinematics with acting

unless everyone that played the MMO were hallucinating.

I mean, you know, maybe it, you know,

maybe they didn't have actors.

I don't know.

So, this week, uh,

this past week, uh,

there was something that was actually, um,

something that had been announced,

and I don't know why.

Uh, well, I mean, I do know why,

but I don't know who really would buy it,

especially if they bought the previous version.

But, Atari

has announced

yet another classic console.

Destruct Road reports

that Atari and PlayOn have announced

that they'll follow up on their Atari 2600

Plus console with another reissue

from their classic line.

This one is the Atari 7800 Plus

based on the 1986-ish console.

Uh, so, the Atari 2600 Plus

already plays 7800 games.

So, we already have

the hardware for this.

I actually have the 2600 Plus.

I just don't have any, uh,

any games,

like, I don't have any 7800 games.

But,

this does come with a wireless version

of the CX78 gamepad,

uh, so, the connect,

and it connects to

a wireless DB9 adapter,

which means it also works

with the Atari 2600 Plus, and even original hardware

and probably other platforms that use DB9,

such as the Commodore 64 and the Sega Master System,

but that's not confirmed.

There are only 59 games

released during the console's original lifespan,

and it's not nearly as ubiquitous

as the Atari 2600.

Um, so, alongside

the 7800 Plus, Atari is

releasing a lineup of cartridge games,

rather than just reissues, that are largely

homebrew ports by prolific developer

Robert DiCrescenzo, including

Asteroids Deluxe, Bounty Bob Strikes Back,

Bentley Bears Crystal Quest, Space Fuel,

Frenzy, and Berserk.

They're also releasing additional 2600 games,

Cavern of Mars, Epyx Game Collection,

M-Network Collection, and

Real Sports Collection.

So, this is going to be, uh, available sometime

in winter of 2024.

Dark Tetsuya says

then the controllers have two buttons, so I get,

like, doing new controllers, but I guess my thing is

I mean, I get why they're doing it, because they want

people to double dip. They want people to get the

new, the new hardware, but this

is literally the same hardware on

the inside. Uh, they're

just releasing a different controller, and if

you could probably get that controller and have it work

on your 2600 Plus.

And, but yes, the 7800

controllers, I believe, did have two buttons, so

that's why you needed a new controller for it.

Uh, TackleLaw asks

will they ever do the Atari that's,

that had the built-in keyboard?

So, one of the Atari computers.

Um, maybe.

That is something that not everybody

has tried. Like, we've only gotten one

of those that actually

had the keyboard built in, and that's

the Commodore 64, and I've actually got the

the limited time

Commodore 64 Maxi

that you can't get anymore.

Uh, you've got that, but really, what they've

got is the C64 Mini is the one that

most people have, which doesn't have a working

keyboard. You plug in a USB keyboard,

to it. And I believe they've done the same with

the Amiga. But it's not,

uh, there's no keyboard

on the Amiga that they've

re-released. It is, again, a

USB. You plug in a USB keyboard.

Breakman says,

LOL, poor kids like me got the

7800 on closeout while friends

were playing the NES.

Uh, SJR Matt says they did do

the Atari 400 Mini earlier this year,

but, uh, the keyboard, uh,

was not working. Uh, so,

it was another one of those, like, it was a small

console. It had the, probably had the keyboard

on it, but it was, you know, just for

show. And you would have to plug in

something like a USB keyboard in order to use

the USB, to use the keyboard.

So, Breakman says,

I have an actual Atari 7800.

I want to know more. So,

uh, it is, uh,

over at Atari

20, uh, at Atari.com.

It is going to be

$129.99.

Uh, and, uh,

um, it's going to come, I believe,

let's see here. So, it plays both the Atari 2600

and the 7800 game cartridges.

Near perfect compatibility

with original and third-party Atari games. Remember,

these consoles

are not, these consoles are

software emulation. Uh,

so, it is not hardware emulation.

It's not FPGA.

It is software emulation, but

the Atari

consoles were not that difficult,

so they have pretty much gotten near perfect emulation

at this point. It's not as hard as, like, a Nintendo

64. It includes

the new wireless CX78

Plus gamepad for all of your two-button

gaming needs. So, the Atari

2600 Plus just came with a wired

joystick that you can even

use on original hardware. But this

includes a wireless thing, but it's not Bluetooth.

It is just an adapter that goes

into the port, the joystick port.

Uh,

easily connects to any screen with HDMI.

Widescreen or 4x3 viewing options

for all displays. Included,

uh, included cartridge is

Bentley Bear's newest 7800

Adventure. Bentley Bear's

Crystal Quest. So, there are still homebrew developers

developing things for, uh,

the 7800.

And, uh, you can,

they actually come with one of the cartridges.

And those cartridges would work in your

original 7800. When I got the 2600

Plus, I got some of the homebrew cartridges that worked

in it, and I went down to my actual 2600

and plugged them in, and they worked just fine.

Uh, and a

USB-C charging cable, wall charging

plug, not included.

Included. So, once

again, no

plug

included.

Look at that, right?

I'm very disappointed. I am out of

wall charging plugs. I have used,

I have reused all of the wall

charging plugs

that, uh, that I've had

that I've had from other phones.

So, I don't have any more.

And you can get, uh,

so they've got the, uh,

you can also get the gamepad. You can, if you're

have the Atari 2600 Plus,

you can get the CX78 Plus

wireless gamepad for $34.99. Buy it

on its own. Uh, Berserk

you can buy for $29.99.

And what they've done with a lot of these is that they've

uh, you know, just repressed

the cartridge. Uh, sometimes

they've added new things, but other times

it's just like, we're gonna, you know, just put the

you know, we're gonna, we're gonna make new versions

of the cartridge so you can get them.

Uh, Bounty Bob Strikes Back

7800. Uh,

so those are some of the games that they've got.

That you can get over at Atari.com.

S. Jerry Matt says,

I have the Atari 400 Mini, and to be honest,

it wasn't a big part of my childhood. I probably wouldn't have

gotten it. Uh, I, or if it

wasn't a big part of my childhood, I would not have

gotten it. Many of the 8-bit era

Atari games that can be played on it exist

in other means. So,

it's, it's nice. Like,

I've got a bunch of mini consoles

so I get it. Like, I've got

two versions of the Commodore 64.

I've got the one that works with the keyboard

and I've got the Mini. Uh,

as well, but then I've also, I actually

have the PlayStation Classic. I've used it once.

I've got the NES and the

SNES Classic. Uh, I've got

the Genesis Classic and the Neo Geo

or not the Neo Geo, uh, the TurboGrafx

one. So I get it.

I get it. Um,

I will say that my,

my thought of having

them easily available

to play on all the time, that didn't wind up

happening. They actually just sit on the shelf over here.

But, um, I get

it for people that really, that

love those games and they may not want to try to deal with getting the original hardware working

so the last story i'm going to talk about tonight is about a mobile game that is coming

that is going away it is it is shutting down but it's getting shut down in i guess the nicest way

possible the verge reports that seven years after launching on ios and android nintendo

has announced that online service for animal crossing pocket camp will be ending on november

28th at 11 a.m eastern time in a statement nintendo assured current players they would

still be able to fully enjoy the game for three more months saying quote we will continue to hold

offense and add items until the service end date unquote in addition to the game shutting down on

the 28th leaf tickets which could be used to expedite building of campsite accessories

will no longer be available for purchase starting on november 27th as of october 28th new monthly

pocket camp club subscriptions will also no longer be accepted and existing subscriptions to all

three games will be available for purchase starting on november 27th as of october 28th

three tiers will no longer automatically renew now november will not be the permanent end of the

trail for animal crossing pocket camp nintendo says that players and their save data can be

carried over to a new version of the game currently in development by linking their nintendo accounts

the company doesn't plan to reveal the new version until sometime in october but shared a few details

saying that it will be a quote paid app without in-app purchases unquote and will not

require a constant internet connection to be played so what they're actually doing is pocket camp

was the animal crossing they put out on mobile where you're basically building a campsite and

you have villagers and friends come into your campsite and it was a live service game uh and

it had you know timing things and things like that and what they're doing is your save game

because some people have been playing it for seven years uh what they're saying is you know

what we're gonna you're gonna pay one-time fee

get a new app your save data will come in you will have all your campsite you'll have all your

villagers and you're gonna get to play it until your phone dies and i think that's the right way

to do it like if you don't want to support the servers anymore give us a version that we can

play offline and that's exactly what nintendo's doing here so if people say nintendo doesn't

listen and doesn't change and you know all that stuff uh they they are because they didn't do

this for dragalia lost

they shut dragalia lost and it's lost it's gone like there's no way to play it anymore

but this they're saying okay you know instead of you know pulling out the crew

on you uh we'll give you a version you're gonna have to pay us a one-time fee because we're not

going to make it a free update but there's going to be a version that you're going to be able to

transfer your data to and you're going to be able to continue the game offline uh for the rest of

until uh your hardware can't run it anymore uh the breakman says it's not real animal crossing

unless someone's playing it and you're going to be able to play it and you're going to be able to

some crooked animal tricks you into lifetime indentured servitude i mean that's why people

don't want the game to shut down is because they still have to pay tom nook back so uh it sucks

that you know that they're shutting it down but at some point if people aren't playing it it's not

worth it to keep it running and they're doing the right thing by you know not losing it entirely

uh but they're giving people an option to continue playing it uh nintendo is shifting away from

mobile uh so uh in 2015 nintendo released miitomo remember miitomo it was like a social network

type of thing uh followed by more ambitious apps like super mario run in 2016 fire emblem heroes

and pocket camp in 2017 and mario kart tour in 2019 in the past five years they haven't done

much of anything on ios and android but at least the company isn't shutting down pocket cap

entirely uh but dragalia lost they absolutely shut down entirely and that's it it's over

as gentleman says finally someone took tom nook to housing court for overcharging bells finally we

are going to take a very quick music break and then we'll talk to rob and we'll talk about what's

going to be going on at uh on orange launch radio tonight and maybe a little more about uh what we're

doing next week you're participating with the bobby blackwell show and the voice of geeks network

at twitch.tv slash vogue network i'm commander shepherd and this is my favorite

podcast on the citadel i'm jennifer hale sometimes known as commander shepherd sometimes known as

faster lachan sometimes known as princess marbox you're participating with the bobby blackwolf show

i know i played that bumper twice in a row i get it but uh it's because i'm the favorite

podcast on the citadel and i'm doing mass effect with male ship i've already met fem ship i get

to meet male ship and and talk with the crew then at dragon con which by the way it was

out to me in private that uh my graphic that i have not posted anywhere yet uh is actually

incorrect um so all those when i was talking about the digital media track rooms uh they're

actually all in hilton galleria six not seven which is next door uh i just had the wrong number

on this this graphic and since i haven't posted the graphic anywhere the only people that know

are all of you here watching and listening to the podcast uh so

be nice i haven't posted yet i will be able to fix it and then we will be able to then you can

find me but i'm also in the app in the dragon con app and that's gonna have anything that changes

from that so coming up next here on the voice geeks network twitch channel at twitch.tv slash

vog network is orange lounge radio it's three people out in sacramento california they talk

about games for much much longer than i do and we like to check in with them and uh and and see

what's going on there uh so sacramento are you there

bobby i'm here how are you i am doing well so the atari 7800 plus did you did you get the 2600 plus

uh no not the one that plays the actual cartridges i got a different thing from

costco that has like a mishmash of other games but no i didn't get the one that

brad wrote the review for our website for a few months ago yeah so would you be interested now

in getting the 7800 plus that looks like a 7800 and still has all the features of the 2600 plus

realistically probably not uh maybe i don't know maybe i i know i'm wishy-washy on it i'm very much

in this purge mode where i probably need to have less stuff in this house like arcade machines

um and uh not more but it is tempting especially you know since it does have kind of the features

of the old machine too i don't know we'll see we'll see what santa has in store yeah i will say

like it's kind of interesting because i buy these things uh because i do get them and i should be in

purge mode too but i'm not

uh but like i buy all these classic consoles and i'll use them like once maybe twice

then they go right back in their boxes i've also been to black wolf manor you have a little more

space than i do i do but but it's like i don't have like space to like keep them all hooked up

and so if like if i want to do some usbc cables you have to buy i know and like the thing that

you know like at least the 7800 they have the wireless stick which you know i could get for

but most of those games are 2600 and i don't see that they have a wireless 2600 joystick

you know they have a gamepad like the 7800 so but like you know so that's kind of hampered a little

bit because a lot of these a lot of the classic consoles and i'm going back to like the nes and

the snes and the genesis and all that stuff that's all wired which which is great for you know

authentic authenticity so it feels right but it's like my tv is too far away and i don't have a

from where my console where i'm sitting and so having the console cord go all the way across

it means that i just i don't use those classic consoles as much yeah i got you

so it's like but then i still buy them because you got to have them especially nintendo uh being

relatively early on in the classic console rampage uh really created the scarcity issue or if you

don't buy one now you're never going to have one yeah

yeah well because like i mean and even like the one that i like the most which is the commodore 64

i'm going to call it the maxi but it's because they have the c64 because they they can't legally

say the word commodore so that's the c64 mini and the c64 you can't get them anymore like the c64

permanent back order like they don't make any more of those and it's not you know artificial

scarcity it's just they don't have the money to keep making them

and it's already a niche product that you know they're hoping that people who wanted it jumped

on it and were able to get it and that's my favorite one um but but even then it sits on

that shelf over there with a light on top of it it's not actually hooked up all the time

didn't they doing a third version of that at some point i think they did an amiga did

or something they did do an amiga yeah i guess i never did like a c64 c because that was the

white commodore yeah it was a thing um

but yeah i guess they never did get around to that so as chairman asked would it let you does

it let you use the atari vcs wireless controller the other mini consoles do let you do that

the thing of i guess the way that the 2600 plus and the 7800 plus work is that it actually has

the db9 connector which is the it's got little nine little dots it's the same connector that

was on the original atari 2600 but also the commodore 64 and the sega genesis in the sega

so but it so the atari vcs wireless controller if it's usb there's no usb port on the 2600 plus

or the 7800 plus so you would need to have an adapter and apparently the cx78 that they're

selling does come with an adapter that plugs into that but it uses that is for that controller and

i don't know if there's a joystick you know like an atari that is also wireless um they've made

them before but i don't know if there are any that work with the db9 connector

there could be just just do bluetooth and let me use a ps5 controller like i know it's not the

authentic experience by any means but you know the playstation is a pretty darn good controller

or let me use my 8-bit do because they want me to call it 8-bit do like scooby-doo hot shots part

do yeah exactly i mean that's what they said nintendo's lawyers are real and they're scared

of them so but like let me use that because 8-bit do makes them pretty good

controllers that do mimic the feel of and they're bluetooth or you know like this this one

especially like actually also works with switch like directly not not via bluetooth but and so

it's it's actually you know let me use those yeah uh so uh are you packed yet oh gosh no barely

started just getting just getting some shopping done i got some new shirts okay i just got uh

here so uh excited to uh have some new wardrobe this year for the next few weeks

for dragon con but uh yeah it's it's weird at less than 72 hours away i know i'm gonna be in

atlanta i know wild wild yep yeah everybody's like you get in on wednesday and i'm like yes

i get it on wednesday and it's starting to feel not soon enough there's legit things happening

wednesday at least as far as like it's like the pre-parties now are wednesday because the official

kickoff is thursday and like a lot of people are booked like you on thursday night yeah

and uh so like yeah legitimately there's a there's like a unofficial official

meetup wednesday seven o'clock like that was talked about at the town hall that we were just

on last week so like there's it's not an official event wink but there's something happening

wednesday seven o'clock and then the joystick game bar with the classic arcade machines will

be open on wednesday so legitimately wednesday is the new thursday yes and so soon you're going

to be coming in on tuesday i'm starting to worry that i might have to come in on tuesday depending

on what all is going on i know one of the other moderators um who comes from the west coast um

who used to live in the west coast and i'm like i'm gonna have to come in on tuesday

but moved to the west coast uh comes in on tuesday and i'm like that's starting to sound

more and more like a better idea but i think if i did that i probably well i keep thinking i would

leave on monday again but there there are some good after parties too so it's like oh yeah it

really is a week-long commitment it is it is um and i live here on a week in a year yeah and but

uh yeah so i'm really looking forward to it we've got some amazing stuff going on they actually added

somebody to your star wars panel um did you not notice it

no they added somebody i didn't know well okay so because of oh my did they get is it manny jacinto it

is because he was an acolyte so they added him to the panel with your star wars the last time i

checked they hadn't added him yet and that was the day they announced him and i was like oh okay

it's probably just you know probably not gonna happen i okay you have to understand i love the

good place oh i do too i do two shows ever so oh my gosh that's that's exciting wow wow

i have a certain friend that got me into that show that's going to be very very very jealous yeah

um but you know what it's gonna be it's gonna be a good time i'm really excited

yeah and i believe like so they're actually running that panel twice and i think the second time

the person is they've got ming na wen is the person that's on the panel oh my gosh i love her

wasn't she chudley in the original street fighter movie she was it was tuesday i knew it i knew it

it was tuesday it's gonna be a tuesday soon when i get to atlanta the way things are going

so so yeah so so there's that i think you even had something added and you never know what's

gonna happen like we may show up you may you know people at dragon con may be on a panel and

suddenly we're we're up there on stage yes yes i i'll quickly state the retro gaming panel i was

going to be doing unfortunately will not be a part of that panel anymore but that is streamed

online the other panel i'm doing is not so i would still encourage you to support ash said hi and the

other awesome content creators that are going to be on that panel unfortunately i had to get pulled

off that's just the way things work um i'm going to be doing instead a uh panel with

a voice actress um her name is amelia gotham and she plays mifa in princess mifa and the zelda

games so if you know in breath of the wild and especially um age of calamity and all that uh was

uh was big so yeah that's the new panel that was not even on like that changed like the day after

i put out my social media posts so yeah it happens yep i'm excited about that panel so you know it

is what it is and that's opposite my one of my katherine tate introductions which it's like

i guess like that's i don't know if you've seen it but i've seen it before i've seen it before

i don't know if you saw the graphic and i know i put the wrong room on it but like i didn't want

to put the katherine tate stuff like in with all my other stuff because i'm not even going to be

on stage for longer than 20 seconds yeah but it should still be on your resume it's well that's

why it's at the bottom it's like oh and i'm also welcoming katherine tate to the stage i think

that's a great way to do it so but but it's like i don't want to be like oh i'm going to be there

from this week because like i may introduce her on stage and then they're like okay you can leave

like um so yeah and and who's to say you know

sometimes we might show it's that's not to say i'm assuming i'm moderating these panels

i might show up and they may say you know we got it we'll do it ourselves and i actually one of them

that i'm doing um and i only say this because i have something to reference uh sunday i have a

star trek lower decks panel which i'm very excited about but tanya newsom and eugene cordero

specifically they did like a duo show on the star trek cruise so like i know they're used to doing

their own thing so it would not shock me if they were like we don't really need a moderator and it

ends up being like oh i'm moderating these panels and i'm moderating these panels and i'm moderating

an introduction thing but we'll see but they're also i get i get the sense from them um they're

very like go with the flow types of folks very humble people too so right now but here's the

thing and they've announced this on the town hall and so we can talk about this part of it and this

may uh have some of that is that they have decided because last year uh dragon card started using

discord to take questions because there was the strike and what they've done is this year they're

you know what there are some people that are you know

don't have the mobility to get up to the microphone there are people that may be watching

on dragon con tv so we're gonna have and what they're basically doing the official line is

they're gonna have the microphone like they like conventions always have but the mod but the

moderators we are being asked to also look at discord yep and so that might be where you would

be in on that panel is that you would be the one collating through discord so they don't have to

yeah good point good point so

you know or or as pod coach says or are too anxious to ask in front of a crowd exactly

like they're trying to be more inclusive of people that can't get up to a microphone and those those

questions like seriously just a little inside baseball i guess nine times out of ten those

questions are better because you lose the whole people wanting to talk about their own life which

i understand yeah people relate like i i i want to be respectful i understand people have these

personal connections that's why they want to do but sometimes people don't want to talk about their

own life and they're like you're not gonna get to talk about your own life and so i think that's

a really good point and i think this is something that you have to be really respectful of because

people forget they're in a crowd of a thousand people that don't necessarily have that same

connection and they want to tell this very personal story that might be better suited for an

autograph or a selfie session um so when you ask the question on discord it gets rid of all of that

yeah so like nine times out of ten the discord questions actually end up better but i also

realize that it's not as quite the bang for the buck for the attendee yeah either you know you want

As long as you, you know, keep it succinct.

Yep.

Yeah.

Questions start with who, what, when, where, why, how, and not I.

Yes.

Great rule of thumb.

Or you bring your Q game, they'll bring their A game.

Those are other things that I've heard.

I like that one.

Yeah.

I stole that from one of the other DragonCon moderators.

Anyway, that's next week.

What are you going to be talking about?

I stole my new cadence.

I always say when I start Rocky Horror now, I say,

ladies and gentlemen, fabulous friends and awesome thems to be inclusive of everybody.

And I stole that from DragonCon.

Yep.

So I tweaked it, but generally I was like, ooh, that has the right cadence I want.

Yeah.

So that's next week.

What are you going to be talking about tonight?

Well, let's talk about some things that happen at Gamescom.

We'll be doing the rundown of some of the announcements from opening night live.

You know, some things that are near and dear to my heart, like Civilization VII finally got a reveal.

So we'll talk a little bit about that.

We'll also talk about, ooh,

some of the timing on Xbox.

Just how long, if you're going to be on the budget plan, the Xbox Game Pass standard plan.

Excuse me.

Just how long are you going to have to wait for the new releases?

We'll talk about that.

And what came out of the Nintendo Museum Direct.

We'll talk about that much more.

Might be double dipping on some things you talked about, but we'll give our spin on it in just a minute.

I'm ready to go to the Nintendo Museum.

I'm ready to go out there.

I am too.

But boy, oh boy, it's going to be just like most Nintendo things.

It's going to be scarce to get into it the first couple of months.

Well, I mean, it's also all the way in Japan.

So it's like I've got to plan that trip too.

It will take some time to get that all situated.

Yes.

Orange Lounge Radio is up next, and I'll see you in about 72 hours in person.

So thanks so much, Rob.

See you soon.

Yeah.

All right.

So that is it for me.

I will be back next Sunday night.

Or not next Sunday night.

Two weeks.

In two weeks.

Because next week I'm going to be at Dragon Con.

I'm holding up something from 1997, which was my first Dragon Con.

I will be at Dragon Con next week doing a whole bunch of stuff in the digital media track as well as on main programming.

Rob will also be there, and we'll be around together as well a lot of the weekend.

So find us on our Discord server, vognetwork.com.

There is a conventions chat channel.

That is where we will be posting things from the convention, pictures from the convention.

You can even say, hey, we want to meet up.

Where can I find you?

So.

Also, you can find me on social media at bobbyblackwolf.com, on Blue Sky, at Bobby Blackwolf, other places.

Would love to see some of you there.

Hey, you know, this show.

If you like this show, tell a friend.

If you hate the show, tell an enemy.

I don't care.

Just tell someone.

The show is not for everybody, but it may be for somebody who does not know about it yet.

And we would not be able to make all this work without the help of the chatters who go above and beyond here on Twitch to help us kind of just keep the lights on.

That's all we're looking for.

We're not looking to make a profit.

But, you know, there are expenses that are incurred with hosting websites and taxes and being official with the government.

So thank you so much, SSJ1Hermat, for your Prime subscription and for Orange Right for resubscribing.

Thank you so much for that.

I will see you in two weeks or maybe I'll see you next week if you're going to be at Dragon Con in, you know, 72 hours.

So it's going to be Wednesday.

Wednesday is the new Thursday.

It's the new Friday.

Soon it's going to be M. Bison Day on Tuesday.

Bye.

A winner is you.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts, guests and callers only and are not necessarily the opinions of the VOD Network, people who need to hire new voiceover guys or your mom.

Although if Bobby said it, it really should be.

This has been a production of Bobby Blackwolf Studios.

Thanks to the Cast

From

LaF être

Your

Gears

of

ISO

The Young

March

Event

retailers

spool

Huh?

r

kid

is

broken

attendance

tiny

Let's

everyone

forget

passion

Are

you

upside

now

L

think

that

can

ride

a

long

bus

Stopping