Diablo 4's Secret Cow Level FOUND After 3 Years + Asha Sharma Rebuilds Xbox + GTA 6's Ticking Clock

Gregory (00:01.324)
What is up? Welcome back to the Jeezy Chop Shop, your weekly spot where we talk about everything going down in gaming. I'm Greg here with Ty and Yuli and this week is heavy. The Apple 4's cow level was found after years of the community hunting for it. GTA 6's November date is still holding, but that May 21st earnings call is looming. And on the Xbox side, well, a lot has changed.

new CEO slash game pass prices and their next gen console project Helix is starting to take shape. Let's get into it. But first, if you're not subscribed to the GZ press play gaming newsletter, fix that right now. It's free. It's on beehive and it drops the week's biggest gaming news, RPG updates, patch notes, and anime game collabs every now and then straight to your inbox in between episodes, linking the show notes. All right, let's get to it. So

Diablo 4, last episode, you know, it wasn't even on the radar. But here we are, as you know, Diablo, Cal Level is basically a franchise mythology. It's starting Diablo 2, Mumu Farm, the Hot Heredric Cube, the Cal King. I think Diablo 3 had two versions of the Mumu Farms or Cal Level. And since Diablo 4 launched, the community has been obsessively hunting for this version.

Ulysses (01:20.302)
That's it.

Gregory (01:25.154)
The game literally had a loading screen tip that said there is no secret cow level. That's pretty much how legendary it's been. And here we go. They're in their second expansion. Correct me if I'm wrong. Second expansion. And now we finally have the cow level. And we're just going to be straight up.

Ulysses (01:39.5)
second expansion. nope, it's the second one. Lord of Hatred.

Gregory (01:50.836)
A lot of gamers are not feeling that the payoff is worth the mind numbing effort to unlock it. Add in the fact you must own not only the base game, obviously, but all the expansions, which is the vessel of hatred and Lord of Hatred to even access the cow level. You have so you have to beat Lord of Hatred.

Ulysses (02:07.374)
Yup. Well, you need to beat Lord of Hatred to even start it. Yup, complete Lord of Hatred campaign.

Ty (02:14.856)
That's, that's diabolical. So not only do you got to sit down through the base game, you got to sit down through the first expansion, have the second expansion, and then do all the side quests for the cows.

Gregory (02:17.676)
Oof. Okay.

Ulysses (02:27.822)
Yeah.

Yup. That... And make you work for it.

Gregory (02:35.214)
Yeah, and I think it's something like you have to hunt 666 cows per region.

Ulysses (02:40.046)
Well there's two ways of doing it. There's an easy way which I guess someone has to moo at you and then you get the level unlocked or the other one is you go to these locations to kill 666 cows. Which, nice.

Gregory (02:55.192)
That's pretty mind numbing. I haven't even finished the first expansion, let alone having to play Lord of Hatred just for this.

Ty (02:58.492)
Yeah.

Ulysses (03:09.198)
I was just waiting for Peter to come out saying, like, these cows don't deserve to die for your trophies.

Ty (03:15.944)
I mean, give it time, give it time.

Ulysses (03:17.198)
Alright, alright.

Ulysses (03:22.274)
They gave us a, you know what, I just remembered something. Like they gave us an article of like how to be vegan and animal crossing new horizons.

Ty (03:31.208)
Yeah.

Ulysses (03:33.294)
It's like, what do you mean? That-

Ty (03:35.912)
Tuesday activity.

Ulysses (03:38.36)
Tuesday activity for them. But anyway, yeah, so there's two ways one is a social way where you get mood and you can start moving use the movie mode and the other one is you go to these locations you kill 660s cows and then it unlocks the area for you to go and fight the cow

Ty (03:53.576)
That just sounds excessive.

Gregory (03:57.004)
I think personally, I think it is a bit excessive for how long people have had to wait because as we were mentioning before the show started, the game came out in twenty twenty three. What was it? You lead June for the super technical.

Ulysses (04:09.102)
Well, beta for the super technical, the beta was June 1st, June 5th, early access, all that. It didn't release until October 17th, 2023.

Gregory (04:18.029)
Okay, so if you are adamant about finding this place, there is a reward. It drops a new mythic unique, the Cow King's Helm.

Ulysses (04:28.802)
Guaranteed too. That's that's good. It's guaranteed.

Gregory (04:31.755)
Guaranteed, yeah. So yeah, at least that's something that's guaranteed and that's not left up to RNG. So if you put in the effort and you have the time to dedicate to it, at least it's a guaranteed drop. If I understand this correctly, a buff that changes with the day of the week comedy buffs, something Blizzard has cooked up. Hopefully it's nothing that works against a build that you have. I don't see people using this much.

Ulysses (04:56.62)
Or you could just make another build. You could just make another build. You can make your cow build.

Gregory (05:00.865)
You make a specific cow build. Yeah, I'm sure people will come up with some broken builds based off of this area and come up with some crazy things. Me personally, I don't see myself doing this anytime soon. But if you're curious about the steps on how to unlock this, I will put a link in the show notes where you guys can read the guide. It's pretty exhausting. Like I think one of the steps you have to complete in a real week time. Six hundred sixty six.

Ty (05:03.047)
Yeah.

Gregory (05:29.024)
1,666 seconds, which yeah, is about a week. You have a week to do it.

Ulysses (05:31.31)
about a week, yeah, it's a weird, you know what, well I mean, you know, it's about devils and all that, so 666 has to be their counter on everything.

Ty (05:35.015)
Such a weird timeframe.

Gregory (05:42.85)
Yeah. But to everyone who has already completed kudos to you, you've got some extraordinary patients. And like I say, you know, I still hold on as a Diablo fan. I played the first and second game. I did play the third game and I did beat the base story of the fourth game. But personally, I do think Activision should have done something a bit more.

Ty (05:45.019)
Yeah

Gregory (06:12.619)
Like, it's cool that they added it, you know, it's a huge part of Diablo lore, but I think they should have given the fans something else, maybe some new lore to look at. It's like, yeah, we brought the Moomoo back and now we've created a new lore for you guys to find a new secret area with guaranteed drops. But we're not going to tell you more than that. There's puzzle pieces figured out because gamers, they they love that. Like, give them a bone to chew on. They're going to they're going to go for it. They've been at this for three years.

You could have given us something else like here. Here's the cow farm. Now here's something else to start off the new Diablo lore or something like that. don't know. Personally, I don't think it was a good payoff for how long gamers have been waiting, but that's my personal take. What do you guys think? Are you going to do all the steps? Are you excited? Do you think Activision Blizzard delivered? Let us know in the comments. Let us know on our website. We'd love to hear your thoughts. But yeah.

Ty (07:08.721)
Well, of course, some people are going to say they could because like, look at all the effort they put in. But at the same time is like, is it really worth, is the juice worth the squeeze of everything else you have to do? Right? You're a true Diablo fan. Cool. I understand it. You already well versed in Diablo. You bought all the DLC, you did the expansions and the find that out was like,

Gregory (07:13.057)
So yeah.

Gregory (07:24.876)
Right.

Ty (07:38.15)
the cherry on top of the Sunday. But casually speaking, right? Because I can say I'm casual with this due to the fact the last true Diablo I sat down and really played, there's a reason, was Diablo II, right? Played Diablo II for a long time. By the time Diablo III came out, I was not able to play that game for

Gregory (07:40.481)
Mm.

Ty (08:07.911)
Reasons of my household was doing that in front of a newborn. Um, right

Gregory (08:09.932)
Mm-hmm.

That's fair.

Ulysses (08:13.762)
player three enter the chat.

Ty (08:17.095)
It's like, yeah, so let me not do that. just by the time I would have been comfortable playing things like that near my family and stuff, and it became a foref- it became an afterthought. So it was like, do I really want to go out of my way? Bye, Diablo. Learn the mechanics of the game. Learn how to play the game again. Go through all the steps.

then get the expansion, then do all this other stuff. Like, at the end of the day, it sounded more like a chore.

Gregory (08:50.155)
Yeah.

And especially since you have to invest real money in it. I do think they should have for something that's so connected to Diablo lore, they should have at least included it. They should have made it accessible to the base game in some way. It's not like they couldn't have done that. But the fact they were blocking it literally behind paywalls, personally, that's like a huge turn off for me. I'm like, yeah, no, that's that's great.

Ulysses (09:17.77)
We expect nothing better from them doing this. They've been just, you know, trying to figure out how to milk money from all of us. Just squeeze every little bit from us.

Ty (09:22.214)
Please.

Gregory (09:23.937)
Yeah.

Every little bit of penny that they can get. But yeah, speaking of squeezing money out of gamers and we'll talk about their parent company here. Moving on to Xbox, you always our favorite topic. OK, but as everyone knows, Phil Spencer's out, Sarah Bond is out and Asha Sharma is the new CEO of Xbox as of February 2026. She came from Microsoft's Core AI division.

Ty (09:29.319)
You get it.

Gregory (09:56.682)
and for the most part had zero gaming industry experience before this. So people obviously mostly gamers were skeptical, but in about three months, she's moved pretty quickly and the community reaction has been, I want to say mostly positive. It's mostly positive. So let's break down what she's been doing so far, starting with Game Pass Ultimate price slash from that horrendous thirty dollars a month to

Ulysses (10:12.59)
It's mostly positive like dropping the price.

Ty (10:13.957)
Yeah

Gregory (10:25.901)
while still might sound crazy, I still think is a lot better, $22.99 a month.

Ty (10:32.647)
$22.99 a month, because you went from $19.99 to $29.99 down to $22.99, right? A lot of people were grandfathered into the $19.99 price because they said, hey, if you already had this at $19.99 and you keep it, that price isn't going to change. Now, I

Gregory (10:43.051)
Mm-hmm.

Ty (11:01.191)
pretty sure the price changed with the whole $22.99 situation, but still, how often, like I said before, do you hear a company reduce its prices? Especially a subscription.

Gregory (11:14.465)
Going. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially with subscriptions, they always wanted to hike them up, which was what the Xbox division was doing was hiking them up. And if anything, that was just hurting their business model more than helping it. And it really wasn't given much of a leg for their loyal community to stand on, because it was like these guys were batting for game pass. And one of their things was.

day one, day one games, day one games. And we've said many times on the show that was actually gonna start hurting the community because the money had to come from somewhere and it was coming through the increased price subscription. And basically the new CEO Sharma is basically like, okay, well, that's done. No more day one call of duty. And while I do think it will hurt

Ty (11:54.085)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (12:09.303)
their subscription numbers, I don't think it will hurt as much as people think. It'll be a dip, but most of that Xbox community, they just want access to the games. Like Call of Duty was like, as we say, the cherry on top.

Ty (12:20.743)
Yeah.

Ulysses (12:24.276)
I can't wait to see the amount of copies sold Call of Duty will have now that they're not including those Xbox Day One players.

Gregory (12:33.249)
Yeah.

Ty (12:34.171)
Well, in on top of that, let's be real.

If this was a decade ago, went in maybe not a decade, because what card came out in 2016? Besides the point, if this would have been Black Ops 2 and 3 era card, I would be extremely worried about that. But today, it's kind of like Mattan. Yeah, it sells well. However, it's one of those ritualistic

This is a chore for me. Let me just get this game to get this game like.

The buzz isn't as heavy as people like to make it sound like how it was over a decade ago for Cod. Right? Yeah, it's a high seller, but like Black Ops 6 came and went. Black Ops 7, probably like a month worth of like real hard, hard hype for it. And then people was just kind of like, it's cool.

Gregory (13:31.841)
Barely a whimper.

Ulysses (13:40.556)
game came out, the story came out, that was like Black Ops was up, I want to say up to six. The stories have been pretty decent, but for the new one that came out, it was, I don't know what it was. It was just drugs. would put it as just, it was just a drug mine trip.

Ty (13:50.383)
Mm-hmm.

Ty (14:04.379)
True.

Gregory (14:04.531)
Yeah, then they were banking on the same. It's, you know, just like there's they were banking on nostalgia and they were banking on just how much people love FPS games and the thirst for FPS games is infinite.

Ulysses (14:05.74)
Yeah.

Ulysses (14:09.614)
making our nostalgia

Ulysses (14:17.87)
Oh, love Black Ops 2? No, no, how much they love Black Ops 2? Black Ops 2 is still many people's top game, top Call of Duty game. Especially the story, like to have a game where the story was so good, you had a Venge Sevenfold play at the end, you had an Venge Sevenfold concert, you were in. That was the shit. That was the game. And by the tell you, the game that came out in 2016 was Infinite Warfare, which I would say was, that for me was the downfall of it.

Gregory (14:23.285)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ty (14:39.163)
Yep, two and three will there be.

Gregory (14:48.205)
They did try to change too much too fast before gamers were ready. It's something you had to ease people into and they didn't ease us into it. They just straight up threw us in the deep end and we're like, here you go. This is what we are giving you.

Ty (14:59.291)
with Infinite Warfare, the one that had space combat.

Ulysses (15:03.758)
space, kid Harrington, Connor McGregor.

Ty (15:05.259)
okay, cool. I skipped that one. I was like, hold on. Like, why? I was mixing that one up with Advanced Warfare and I couldn't remember which one was which.

Gregory (15:09.58)
Yeah.

Gregory (15:14.413)
You know, yeah, and I was going to say I will. Yeah, Advanced Warfare was good, and I will I will say, OK, if you include Advanced Warfare, I guess that was their kind of their way of easing us into it. But then Infant War went straight up sci fi. Like Advanced Warfare brought in, I think it was like the Exo style suits. Yeah.

Ulysses (15:14.742)
Okay, advanced warfare is good. I will not take advanced warfare slander here.

Ty (15:30.163)
Yeah

Ulysses (15:33.016)
the exosuits and brought that.

Ty (15:33.817)
Advanced Warfare brought in the jet packs and everything and that's what pissed people off for Black Ops 3 at first. And then they got their hands on Black Ops 3 and they're like, this shit ain't bad.

Gregory (15:37.057)
Yeah.

Gregory (15:41.121)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (15:45.644)
Yeah.

Ulysses (15:46.115)
forward.

Gregory (15:48.43)
And I think that's what everyone holds onto. They're holding onto that lightning in the bottle moment. And they're like, it wasn't this one, it'll be the next one. It wasn't this one, it'll be the next one. And that's why these Call of Duty's just keep, well, I want to say selling, but we don't really know because they day one releases.

Ulysses (16:02.252)
I know. They probably, they still sell, they still make money.

Ty (16:05.511)
It really isn't that COD is selling. It's more so, yeah, COD has sales. Don't, don't get me wrong. But like nowadays when people talk about COD, what I'm hearing, it's more about the battle royal side. Why can't I think of the name of

Gregory (16:13.483)
Yeah, yeah.

Gregory (16:25.869)
Warzone.

Ty (16:28.141)
Yeah, it's more about Warzone than the actual COD itself.

Ulysses (16:28.152)
Warzone.

Gregory (16:30.7)
Yeah.

Gregory (16:35.373)
Yes, actually, when you put it like that, I feel inclined to agree. Warzone is definitely what keeps the Call of Duty franchise afloat. It's kind of like it's the G-tailed line for Call of Duty, if we're going to be completely honest here.

Ulysses (16:49.006)
So here we go. got.

Ty (16:49.231)
And I'll never forgive you motherfuckers for disrespecting Call of Duty Ghost and saying it was shit and now y'all want it back.

Gregory (16:54.882)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ulysses (16:57.94)
it was underrated. The story was good too. Like for the most part, when you release Call of Duty, give us a good story. The game will last a lot longer than you expect.

Gregory (17:07.403)
Yes.

Ty (17:08.071)
Mm-hmm.

Ulysses (17:08.878)
But I got some information. So as of 2025, the revenue on PC for Call of Duty fell nearly 65 % on PlayStation and dropped 43 % based on analytics released. Nothing on Xbox or Game Pass. But it says here, I'm looking it up, Game Pass kind of cannibalized $300 million worth of copies from Call of Duty.

Ty (17:34.565)
Yeah, they basically released it for free.

Ulysses (17:35.448)
Thanks to Game Pass.

Gregory (17:36.587)
Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of revenue they lost.

Ulysses (17:38.454)
Yeah. That is a lot too. Jesus Christ.

Ty (17:43.067)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (17:43.18)
Yeah. And you know what? Kudos to Sharma because, you know, I was reading one of her interviews and one thing she said to grow a subscription business, you need more players who love the subscription that are staying longer and that are happy. And obviously, in I want to say in the recent couple of years, the Xbox community has been pretty much split, but for the most part, they were not happy. And that price hike definitely was was killing it.

I think at this point, like that's why I say the loss of subscriptions, cause she's predicting there'll be some subscription dips because Call of Duty won't be a day one anymore, but.

Just based on the fact of those numbers, I think a lot more players would be willing to buy the game and have a lower subscription game pass for all their other games.

Ty (18:40.943)
Yeah, like, people need to understand that purchasing, buying a game isn't like the end of the world. And the fact that we're kind of like stuck in a world now where you need a subscription to play any game online, it hurts to think that a

Gregory (18:50.166)
Right.

Ty (19:09.223)
You have to drop however much money just to play with your friends for a sub for something you might use maybe 50 % of.

Gregory (19:19.809)
Mm-hmm.

Ulysses (19:20.642)
console.

Ty (19:22.085)
Yep. Well, yeah. But it's like.

Gregory (19:22.738)
yeah, one console.

Ulysses (19:23.96)
on cuts.

Ty (19:29.191)
Why? The why is always gonna be there, right? And I'm glad somebody finally, somebody of that higher authority is finally sitting there going, what the fuck are we doing? Right? Cause she definitely didn't have to lower the prices at all. But.

Gregory (19:42.966)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (19:47.63)
No. And I'm pretty sure she's been fighting shareholders back and forth on this because shareholders, they're all about the money and telling them, hey, you're to have to forego some of that money. I'm pretty sure didn't go over well. But if they want Xbox to stick around, because notice in this was said like a couple of years ago when I was talking to Daniel about this and Phil Spencer made his ambiguous remark about 2027, I was like. Notice and I said,

Ty (19:55.75)
Yeah.

Gregory (20:17.421)
2026 is the year we would start seeing either a change or the collapse. I called it and I said, this is the year we would start seeing it. We called that.

Ulysses (20:24.032)
I was going to say we called that. was like once we called that, we said like two things are going to happen. Either X-Box, Phil Spencer is going to take X-Box down with him, or they're going to realize he's the problem and got to get rid of him.

Ty (20:36.471)
And the thing is people sing his praise, but it's like he's been the problem since the

Gregory (20:36.726)
and

Ulysses (20:43.04)
Xbox One.

Ty (20:44.335)
Yeah, I always mix up one in Series X. I was like, which one came out first? Yeah.

Ulysses (20:48.406)
It was the one, it the one that wanted to be like a cable box, Xbox combo.

Gregory (20:51.787)
Yeah.

Yeah, so now that people have given Sharma the chance and she looks right now she's for the players. And as long as the community keeps letting her do her thing, I think Xbox could survive for at least a good 10 more years under her with the direction she because that seems to be her priority. Like.

Ty (21:18.321)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (21:24.225)
the shareholders are gonna be good. They're always gonna have a cushion. And at some point, just to be blatant, I'm like, we needed someone who started to say, fuck the shareholders, what about the players?

Ty (21:34.066)
Which is crazy, because you wouldn't think it would be the person that really wasn't involved with gaming at all, was just the AI consultant. And her very first things, her very first few steps was, let's make this about the gamers again. Let's stop making this a, hey, this is a business run. Hey, we got to do this. We got to do this. We got to.

Gregory (21:45.335)
Mm-hmm.

Ty (22:02.011)
We got to bolster our sales by buying out all these companies and then not use them for anything. We got to do this. We got to do this. When she stepped in the role, she was just like, no, let's, let's look at what we have. This essentially she pretty much said this Activision deal fucked us over without saying the Activision deal fucked them over. She was just like, yo, all these inquisitions fucked us up.

Gregory (22:23.807)
Mmm.

Gregory (22:27.341)
Yep.

Ty (22:32.387)
So let's take a step back and let's give our actual clientele what they want.

Gregory (22:42.283)
And I think and I know she's she's also wanted to start bringing back exclusives, which I say is totally fine. Like give your community a reason to keep buying the hardware, because right now there's really no reason to buy Xbox exclusively. So when this wave of the games that they pretty much have given everyone goes out, I would not be surprised if they were like, OK, cool. We're resetting, bring it back exclusives, you know, bringing it back to home. I'm like, hey, do you more power to you?

Ty (22:42.373)
So let's get muffle.

Ty (22:53.009)
Thank you.

Gregory (23:12.023)
Give me a reason to want an Xbox again. Give me a reason. Yeah.

Ulysses (23:14.754)
Gears of War is the only reason I go back to Xbox. Gears of War. They're releasing E-Day, I'm ooh, I'm for it.

Ty (23:15.035)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (23:21.441)
Yeah. And I also, as you know, one of my final thoughts on this, I think her not having experience in the gaming industry is what made her such a strong CEO. Because when you enter the gaming ecosystem, you're going to have bias.

It's unavoidable as a gamer. You're going to have a preference for a certain genre. You're going to have a preference for a certain game. You're going to just look at one side and be like, and look at another and be like, this is our baby. And that's what happened with Call of Duty. They put Call of Duty on this pedestal. They went and bought the company and they kept pedestal in these live service and what they thought could last forever type games. While a lot of other games were getting screwed over.

And then here you have Sharma that comes in and she doesn't have as far as we know, she doesn't have any of those spices. She sees everything as the same shade. She's like, they're all video games. You've got thousands of developers here trying to put out games. Let's not just put one on a pedestal and ignore the rest.

Ty (24:29.317)
Right, because what? Microsoft has like 16 companies underneath them that, well 16 other gaming studios underneath them or something like that. I could look it up, I'm just lazy right now.

Gregory (24:41.293)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (24:46.357)
Yeah, calm down keyboard warriors. Yuli's on it.

Ty (24:48.071)
Yeah. But yeah, like you got like Ninja Theory with them. You got Activision Blizzard. Well, you got Activision. You got Blizzard. Yes, I know they're they do have Riot.

Ulysses (24:50.446)
I'm on it, I'm looking it up.

Gregory (24:57.451)
You Riot? I think they have Riot Games too.

Ulysses (25:03.158)
Is it called rights, though?

Gregory (25:05.207)
Probably not. The studios change names so often. Bethesda.

Ty (25:06.381)
No. Whatever rare is called now.

Ulysses (25:09.214)
So a corner right now they have 40 unique game studios under five major publishing labels the labels are Xbox game studios Bethesda Activision Blizzard and King

Gregory (25:20.119)
King. There you go.

Ulysses (25:21.902)
That's what it was. was keen, which, yeah, Activision.

for Activision being only a Call of Duty one, like, well mean, you can also consider them part of Blizzard, they're really two different things.

Gregory (25:37.227)
Yeah.

Ty (25:39.162)
I separate the two only because of the fact like whether people want to admit to it or not. Even though they are kind of a combined front, a lot of the times they don't play that way. So it's like, Hey, Activision, we're making a good game. This game actually, Activision. Hey, we're making con Blizzard. Hey, we're trying to update Overwatch.

and they don't intersect.

Gregory (26:09.719)
Yeah.

Ulysses (26:12.472)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but yeah, they got a lot. They do have a lot of good games under them too as well. But as they're still one of the biggest ones out there with Elder Scrolls 6 coming out and they got Fallout 5 potentially in the works.

Gregory (26:32.779)
Now this just crossed my mind as we're talking about all these studios. I don't know for sure. So please fact check this. Have we had any closing of studios since Sharma took over?

Ty (26:46.7)
since she took over? I don't think so.

Ulysses (26:47.374)
No, it's still too early.

Gregory (26:49.525)
And have we had any layoffs since she's been in? Because I know Microsoft's been on a trend lately with their like layoffs and even from their gaming division.

Ty (27:02.693)
Layoffs? Maybe? But...

Ulysses (27:05.082)
You may be, it always happens though.

Gregory (27:08.491)
Because I'm just saying, I'm like, this is just my speculation. This is not fact proven. This is just my own personal speculation because Microsoft was on this trend of closing studios that had given them banger games. And I was like, OK, they're trying to save money. And I was thinking, I was like, are they just trying to make up for the money that Call of Duty was costing them and spending it for the next Call of Duty trailer?

Ulysses (27:22.532)
wow.

Ty (27:35.013)
They had a buyout. Microsoft had a buyout this year.

Ulysses (27:37.87)
So they're having, yeah.

So there hasn't been a single mass layoff, but Sharma is saying that there's gonna be leadership shreeshuffle, which now they're calling it the leadership purge.

Gregory (27:54.99)
You know what? This lady is on a roll. I just say let her work, let her cook, let her do whatever she's doing.

Ty (27:55.527)
Yeah.

Ulysses (28:01.826)
That is... heads... Hey, you know what? Some of these heads need to get the fuck out, like... You're worried too much about the profits. Once you're about too much of the profits, the game suffers.

Gregory (28:06.827)
Yes.

Ty (28:08.314)
Yeah.

Gregory (28:12.533)
Yeah, I think I don't. As much as we've like made it seem like with, you know, we got this issue with Xbox, I mainly have had an issue with how Xbox was being run. I my first actual next gen console was a 360. So Xbox had a special place in my heart, and I've always wanted a reason to go back to it.

Xbox One disappointed me, especially with how they tried to market it and how they wanted that. You gotta always be online. And I was like, what? Why?

Ulysses (28:49.314)
Also, the original, how you had to buy the license for a game that you bought used.

Gregory (28:54.515)
Right. And it was ridiculous. And I'm like, please, Microsoft, give me a reason to come back. I kept for years trying to come up with a reason to get Game Pass. And I love that they tried to expand and you can use Game Pass in VR and I can use Game Pass on AR and I can use Game Pass almost anywhere. Cool. Now give me games that I actually care about to justify that.

Ty (29:22.407)
So there's games on there that you would care about. The problem is, I know you well enough to know the games that you would legit care about that pop up on Game Pass. You would buy before it even, before it came across your mind to be like, let me check this out on Game Pass. Prime example, Metaphors on Game Pass.

Gregory (29:43.501)
Yeah, I definitely would do that.

yeah, I bought better for day one.

Ty (29:50.894)
eggs. point.

Gregory (29:53.057)
what that day was.

Ty (29:54.866)
Persona four, the remaster that's gonna come out. I'm almost positive that's gonna be our game pass, but I know you.

Gregory (30:05.047)
Day one. Day one. I like to because I want to support. So they keep making the games like, you know, sometimes I can wait like if it's on my radar, but it's not like a day one. Like that's how PlayStation Plus is or a game I might have forgotten about, you know. Great.

Ty (30:07.385)
Ergo Myphil.

Ulysses (30:23.918)
to horizon six. It's apparently, yeah day one game pass but I paid for it.

Gregory (30:29.581)
I probably will pay for it. I'm not even gonna lie that way. I don't have to even worry about the whole game pass thing in case anything changes. But that's a topic we can get into for hours. But we've got to move on. But still something's hiding in the Xbox project helix. So let's talk about that. Microsoft put out an Xbox game dev update on May 7th. But VP Jason Ronald came out.

before it aired and said, hey, this is literally just a replay of what we showed at GDC in March. Nothing new. But he also confirmed we will have more to share about Project Helix later this year. So where does that leave us? It looks like this Project Helix is going to actually manifest into something before it was just kind of like whispers in the wind. Will it happen? Will it not? When Xbox was kind of on the ropes, if it would even still be around to have a system.

Ty (31:25.713)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (31:25.963)
I'm guessing they feel more confident with Sharma at the helm. She's probably given them that bolster of confidence they needed to push forward because now we're hearing more about it more frequently. Like I think before it was like they mentioned it once maybe last year. I could be wrong. Yeah.

Ty (31:41.924)
it like a handful of times. But hmm. All right, so someone's gonna say it and I'll just be the villain of this arc. I hate every I hate everything about this. Right. Now, before people sit here and go, how could you hit a new system? Cool. And for anybody fixes their lips to say, well, the timeframe makes sense.

Ulysses (31:58.958)
Yep.

Ty (32:11.565)
It does. It absolutely does. Probably.

We went through COVID, right? I'm just going to go back to this, not always will. We went through COVID. And the problem what happened with these current gen consoles during COVID was chip shortages, RAM shortages, product shortages. There's people that I know that couldn't get a PS5, which released middle of COVID in 2020.

Gregory (32:38.561)
Hmm.

Ty (32:48.903)
couldn't get a PS5 to 2022, 2023. Before you sit here and say, oh, they were just broke or, it wasn't that hard. Yeah, it actually was for a while for a lot of people because.

Gregory (32:54.509)
This guy.

Ulysses (33:02.254)
Some people had to buy it from Kohl's.

Gregory (33:03.519)
And scalpers don't sleep, so...

Ty (33:07.035)
Well, you know, you're not tricking me with this right now. But like this was a system that quite literally you had to wait online, hope you got hope you got the ticket for it. And this is both the Xbox and the PS5. Hope the gods you have a ticket for it. And then hopefully the website was aligned to you when you got in the queue.

Ulysses (33:08.13)
Yeah.

Ty (33:36.304)
to have said ticket to purchase said console because God knows how many times that happened. And then, if the numbers didn't refresh fast enough and you were sitting there waiting in queue and you're like, yeah, I'm next in line, I'm next in line, next in know, you get the dreaded error, your time will set and now you're in a loop and it is like,

your number 1,275, in queue, time to wait 24 hours, like, wait, wait. And then it was like time to wait two years. What the fuck you mean to you know what I'm Click away from this. Right. I lucked out. I got mine early. But when you honestly think about it,

Gregory (34:10.057)
Yup. Yup.

Gregory (34:22.023)
Mm-hmm. Yep, I'm done. I'm out. Yeah.

Ty (34:34.119)
with both the Xbox and the PS5, do you really feel that both of those consoles have pushed their hardware to the limit yet?

Gregory (34:43.851)
No, and the proof of that is the PS5 Pro getting all of the updates and the tweaks that the PS5 should have been getting since its launch. And the PS5 Pro is basically, because Sony stuck with their timeframe, which I think they could have gone without doing for once because of COVID, and they're playing catch up with the PS5 Pro and they're pushing all the updates that the PS5 should have been getting.

all the overhauls for the games. The games are finally rolling out and they're already talking about PS six. And like I get it. Cool. This is their usual time frame. But we had, like you said, a point in history where shit literally stopped time for the most part stopped. That changes things and people are still getting their hands on what they're calling older systems now. And they're like, well, hey, I'm just got it.

You guys don't have enough games to really justify this as an old system. What the heck? So. But I will say, I guess mildly playing devil's advocate because Xbox has had. If we're just going to be honest, they've had a rough almost decade.

Ty (35:59.986)
that too unsuccessful councils.

Gregory (36:02.157)
Yeah, them pushing Helix and pretty much making it their Hail Mary. I get under new leadership. It could work. My concern is that they want to put it out next year, but the dev kids don't roll out until next major reveal window Xbox game showcase June 7, 2026. But deaf kids don't start shipping until 2027.

So if the dev kits, which the devs will need to make sure their games work on your hardware, don't ship until the year you have your console launch. That means it's going to be, unless they're coming out with some secret exclusives, which I know, like we mentioned earlier, that's what charm was pushing for. It's going to be another dry release like every modern console has been doing for like the last decade. They release their hardware a year before there's any games for it.

Ty (37:02.425)
And I really, in a perfect world, really hoped that we wouldn't get a new generation till no offense, 2030. I really hoped for that. Like, let it get 10 years. And people are like, that's stupid, da-da-da-da. We need a new console. Like, no, we don't. Like, we need new games. We don't need new hardware. Like, we're in the era where

Gregory (37:16.449)
That was my hope too.

Yep.

Ty (37:32.231)
these consoles are basically just lower grade gaming computers that you can just upgrade online. Get those updates, purchase your 1Z, 2Z upgrades, and let the system bake for a while.

Gregory (37:55.512)
Yeah, let it let it reach its full potential. And I think they would get a better judgment on what people want, what people expect, because at that point, we've gotten the games at their peak. We've pushed the hardware as far as it can go. Then gamers will be able to say, your next system, we would like this because all the quality of life updates that come after consoles launched like PS5 halfway through its lifecycle, we're just now get

Ulysses (37:57.934)
and so it's kind of a benefit for me and my brother.

Gregory (38:24.343)
getting quality of life we should have had in year one, two, and three. And all of that could have been avoided had they let the consoles run their full lifecycle before spitting out the next one. And just take what worked from the previous, move it to the next, trim the fat of the things that pretty much nobody vibed with. The majority are like, yeah, we could do without that. And then bring that in and

Ty (38:27.825)
Uh-huh.

Ty (38:50.417)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (38:53.567)
over the years build up to it. So I don't know, like I wanna be, I'm curious. I won't say I'm excited. I'm curious about the Helix, but we won't hear more until they have their showcase and then maybe we'll get an estimate on price, which is another thing that scares me for the future. It's pretty much at this point unavoidable that it's gonna become

But damn, causes are becoming ridiculously priced.

Ty (39:23.748)
a thousand dollar console.

Ulysses (39:25.646)
Yep, that's gonna be the problem. It's gonna be worth four digits Which isn't gonna be yeah shit

Gregory (39:31.147)
Yeah. So.

It's gonna be scary.

Ty (39:35.368)
and then then top it off, what's gonna happen? It's gonna be a Cyberpunk 2020, well 2077 situation all over again. Hey, we're building these games for the current gen. They get told, scrap that, build it towards this new gen, because we're gonna give you the dev kit and then the-

current gen is gonna falter because of the fact the hardware can't keep up with the game because they had to update it to the current dev kit. now look, you gotta, if you wanna actually play our game, you need the modern console. And again, I'm not going through that shit with cyberpunk again.

Gregory (40:25.754)
man, yeah.

Ty (40:27.811)
And mind you, I had a PS5 when Cyberpunk came out. I still don't want to do that shit.

Gregory (40:35.115)
Yeah, that was rough. And I was I was at the what was the baseline, which was having a PS4 Pro and barely could cross that threshold. And I was like, OK, this is this is ridiculous. Like I felt bad for the people who just were like, hey, my PS4 works just fine. I'll just stick with that. And then they couldn't even play the game. can't even play the game that was promised they should be able to play. But we'll see. They're not releasing a lot of information, which I think is good.

Ty (40:59.855)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (41:05.389)
But we've got the game, you know, we've got the showcase in June, the game awards in December. We'll probably get an update. And one of those two events and we'll see if it's going to be worth it. I know it's a PC console hybrid. I still got my thoughts on that, but that's a topic for another time. So, yeah, that's that's all the information we've got on the on the helix. So our final topic for the day.

is a tie into our last episode before this where we were talking about GTA 6. So if you guys haven't listened to the episode, go back and check it out because it was a lot of good information in there. But it seems like Rockstar is sticking to their guns with the November 19th date. Last episode, we discussed the situation. It's pretty much GTA 6 situations at a high level. So this week, we're going to talk about the May 21.

earnings call specifically because we broke down why it was important last episode and right now it's on the clock. So still no third trailer. The 21st date is rapidly approaching.

Ulysses (42:17.72)
Ten more days from this recording.

Gregory (42:19.661)
Yeah, from this recording 10 more days by the time you guys hear it even less. So if there's still no trailer by the time you hear this podcast or if you don't watch this podcast till after May 21st and if they haven't canceled it yet, then hold on to hope, I guess.

Ulysses (42:33.286)
I like I said if we get the Got what are those videos called those trailers they do where they break down the game for you They did it for Red Dead 2 they did it for GTA 5

Gregory (42:41.46)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ty (42:43.707)
the mechanics trailer.

Ulysses (42:46.166)
The mechanics trailer if we get that is this next trailer. It's coming out in November if we get another cutscene trailer, you know with less little gameplay probably

Gregory (42:57.191)
Yeah, you know, and that's a you know, that that's a good way to pretty much predict it, honestly, because the one thing they're going to want to do that every game, every major game at this point has to do is the gameplay trailer and breaking down the mechanics. That's that's like a must. And there's not a lot of window of time for them to do it, because they said November 19th, that's a whole month before we even think about.

the game awards. So and their earnings call is May 21st. I'm like, OK, there's not really another window for them to drop a trailer unless they decide to start their own like rock star director or something. I wouldn't. Everyone wants to have their own show at this point. But.

Ty (43:45.467)
Would you put it past-

Ulysses (43:46.158)
No.

Ulysses (43:52.234)
Nintendo kills it with their own shows their own little Nintendo directs

Gregory (43:55.745)
Yeah.

Ty (43:56.871)
Nintendo is different.

Gregory (43:58.574)
Yeah, they've carved out their own lane and everyone just pretty much stays out of it. But yeah, it's um, there's not really much you can say about GTA 6 at this point. They're saying it's coming out this year for sure, for sure, for sure. November 19th. But everyone's waiting with bated breath because the last time they had an earnings call, they postpone the game right before the earnings call.

Ulysses (44:05.358)
Thank

Ulysses (44:23.47)
I just hope we get a mission where it's our two protagonists in the car, one driving and the other one sitting in seat, Phil Collins in the air tonight playing in the background, one of the other characters in the passenger seat loading up a double gauge shotgun. Just a double barrel, double gauge, double barrel. know, give me Miami Vice vibes, I want that. And the real deal is coming out with, fuck what's his name? Sinners.

Gregory (44:39.949)
That's

Ty (44:40.237)
no!

Gregory (44:46.253)
That would be pretty cool. not even gonna lie.

Gregory (44:52.918)
Michael B. Jordan.

Ty (44:53.029)
Michael Jordan's coming out with the, yeah, him and Austin Butler. Yep.

Ulysses (44:53.11)
Yeah, Austin Butler. Yep, I'm excited.

Give us those vibes. Give me Miami Vice vibes. I don't care. And give me the ability to kill Iguanas.

Gregory (45:06.989)
That's most random thing. Giant, giant iguanas.

Ulysses (45:09.198)
Yeah, invasive species yeah invasive species that dude that has to be like that like uh That has to be one of the states like yeah iguanas are in the basic species in Florida Where you know technically this game is sort of takes place in the Miami version of it So it could be a mini game. It's like a very Gwani you kill 50 bucks

Gregory (45:28.927)
I my only concerns and I would see to this GTA would definitely be what I get digitally because I am not going to be dealing with scalpers. I scalpers are going to be a nuisance when this game finally drops. Yeah. But.

Ty (45:30.274)
one eight eight.

Ulysses (45:38.293)
so you're going to it under gig download.

Ty (45:43.399)
You know that game's gonna be big as fuck.

Ulysses (45:45.854)
yeah. As long as it's not bigger than Call of Duty, and I'm not talking about just like a specific game, their Call of Duty app where they have all the games in, that's annoying.

Gregory (45:46.861)
It's gonna, and that's gonna hurt so bad.

Gregory (45:54.902)
Mm-hmm.

Ty (45:58.012)
Well, you know. Unfortunately, that shit happens.

Gregory (46:00.705)
No.

Well, here's your heads up warning. If you need to get yourself an extra SSD, do it now.

Ulysses (46:09.198)
to and now before the price is going up again. Yeah, let's do it.

Ty (46:10.715)
prices are just going up any fucking way.

Gregory (46:12.979)
Yeah, you might as well get it now because you know, when that game does finally drop all your other game and I know a lot of people have no problem with it, they'll delete all their other games to only play GTA. I personally cannot do that. I refuse. I will just add it to my library if they make it PlayStation, put it on the cloud like would cut whatever deal you have to. Don't let Rockstar bully you.

Ty (46:25.573)
Refuse?

Ulysses (46:26.702)
That was you.

Ty (46:36.059)
They won't. They won't.

Ulysses (46:38.926)
Yeah, I forgot they're gonna release it on console first and then like probably a year later on PC

Gregory (46:43.955)
Yeah, the PC release date is still undetermined.

Ulysses (46:46.198)
Yeah, that's that's gonna suck. You know, I have no problem believing all the games on PlayStation There's only one there's only one two. I actually play on that that's wilds and ZZZ

Gregory (46:57.069)
Yeah, well, that works out for you because you're mainly a PC player anyway. So that works out for you. Yeah, but yeah, no, that thing better be streamable on the cloud.

Ty (47:01.479)
doesn't work for me.

Ulysses (47:05.878)
Can we talk about can we talk about also cuz Ty is here we gotta talk about it stranger than heaven trailer drop Yes, dude me and you were on that chat feeding over it

Ty (47:18.663)
Enjoy.

It's the simple things in life. Very simple, right? For those of you that don't know, well, y'all know the Yakuza thing. I'm a huge Yakuza fan. I know if, ands, buts about it. I'm also a huge music lover. Oh God. You mean to tell me I get to hear the wonderful voice of Tori fucking Kelly both in game and in the fucking...

Gregory (47:22.157)
Oh, do you pray to.

Ulysses (47:22.168)
Fiending.

Ty (47:51.004)
title song? Sign me the fuck up.

Ulysses (47:55.619)
Dude, that song alone, if they release it right now, would break Spotify, would break whatever music platforms out

Gregory (47:55.871)
Senga has been on it.

Ty (48:03.771)
What do mean if they release it right now? It's released.

Ulysses (48:06.51)
No, the one with, I was talking about the one with Steve Dog and Otto, not that.

Gregory (48:11.37)
Is it?

Ty (48:11.773)
huh.

Ulysses (48:13.601)
Is it out?

Ty (48:14.791)
huh.

Gregory (48:15.873)
Man, you better go download it.

Ulysses (48:16.447)
i- i am- i'm on it, i was looking for it, i'm like, why the fuck can i not find it?

Gregory (48:23.885)
You probably because sometimes they'll put stuff out on like trailers and YouTube before they're like official release and it's usually like Yeah, and it's usually like a day or so, but then it's gonna wind up on iTunes and Spotify not long after

Ty (48:31.323)
That's probably how I up doing it.

Ty (48:42.768)
Yeah.

Gregory (48:42.989)
Although some trailer songs do never see the light of day on music apps because I still to this day have ticked that the Mortal Kombat X trailer song never got an actual official release. Only place you can listen to it was on YouTube.

Ulysses (49:02.664)
speaking of releases and all that, this one's an anime news one that, you know, is a little... And you want... 86 is being removed from Crunchyroll.

Gregory (49:12.673)
Why?

Ulysses (49:14.322)
The licensee rights are gonna go like we're we're learning about I learned it about this morning when we were doing this that 86 the the anime that It's pretty fucking good and the books are just as good. It's being removed from crunchy roll

Ty (49:29.959)
Remember when Crunchyroll was a free app?

Ulysses (49:33.133)
Yep.

Gregory (49:33.299)
I remember, yeah, when it was the MySpace for anime lovers. Yeah.

Ty (49:36.965)
Yeah. And how it used to be.

Ulysses (49:37.836)
Yep, the page is no longer available.

Gregory (49:40.235)
Good grief.

Ty (49:41.509)
and how it used to be your one stop shop for fucking manga and anime and...

Gregory (49:46.646)
Yeah.

Ulysses (49:49.546)
That's why I bought the blu-ray this morning too, as soon as it's gone I'm like, yeah, no, I gotta buy it. You can't trust these streaming companies.

Gregory (49:54.081)
Bygone era. Yeah, it's a nightmare.

Ty (49:58.609)
Listen, my beef-

Ulysses (49:58.83)
If you have a favorite anime, you have a favorite show, buy the mangas, buy the blu-rays, buy a blu-ray player. You will always have that. You can't trust these online companies.

Gregory (50:03.469)
Yeah.

Ty (50:07.705)
And don't get disappointed when they pull a fuckin' soul eater or dead man wonderland on you. And don't adapt the actual manga. Sorry, seething impud-

Gregory (50:19.245)
My only thought on that to piggyback off of what you both are saying, anime only watchers, remember, the anime is merely the sales pitch. That's really all it is. It's the sales pitch to get you to buy the manga. I know a lot of people are like, I can't read the mangas. I need the anime, I need the flash, I need all that.

And then you get disappointed when there's seven years between seasons and then only to find out there won't be another season. And then you have an uncompleted series as an anime, but its manga is completed. Always remember the anime is just the sales pitch. That's why there's so many out there and why so many only have 12 episodes. Yeah, I know that we got spoiled in the the 80s, the 90s and the early 2000s with long standing series, but

Ty (51:02.439)
That's why I T-Band is doing shit.

Gregory (51:14.465)
Those days are for the most part done. look at the long standing series that remained. They started decades ago. There's no, I don't think there's any new series that's long standing anymore. I think.

Ty (51:23.365)
I mean...

Ty (51:29.851)
When one piece has outlasted most of the...

series that have a long standing, right? Talking about My Hero, Demon Slayer, Fire Force, One Piece has outlasted all of those.

Gregory (51:41.939)
One piece case closed. Yeah.

Gregory (51:49.355)
Yep. Yeah. And it's not even one of the longest ones that's still going. There's one from the...

Ty (51:56.903)
Detective Conan.

Gregory (51:58.658)
There's one even longer than that.

Ty (52:01.094)
Why? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

Gregory (52:03.713)
Yeah, detect. there's there's a there's one that's yeah, I can't remember the name of it. I see it pop up every now and then. And it's got a ridiculous amount of episodes. You know, did you find it?

Ulysses (52:04.329)
Damn.

Ulysses (52:18.444)
looking at it right now it is cooked what whoa

Gregory (52:22.701)
It must be a hell of a title.

Ty (52:24.144)
Mm-hmm

Ulysses (52:25.838)
Sase's son over 9,000 episodes since going on since 1969 Detective Conan only hit the 1,200 mark

Gregory (52:29.535)
Yep. I was going to say, yeah, was like, I was pretty sure it was from the sixties, but I didn't want to misquote.

Ty (52:38.553)
Mm-hmm.

Gregory (52:39.853)
So that's not a thing anymore. Yeah.

Ulysses (52:41.784)
Technically Pokemon is longer. Pokemon is longer.

Gregory (52:47.265)
So I'm just saying guys, you might have to break out your comfort zone and start getting the source material. Do yourself a favor, otherwise you're gonna have unanswered questions, tons of broken hearts and a lot of, yeah. Yeah, so.

Ulysses (52:55.374)
Build it up. Do not trust these fucking companies to keep making what you love. The fact that we got the ending of JJ.

Ty (53:02.383)
Just watch Dead Man Wonderland.

Gregory (53:05.837)
He's never letting that go.

Ulysses (53:07.662)
He's never gonna let that do.

Ty (53:07.813)
No! 13 fucking episodes for an amazing manga!

Gregory (53:14.685)
And I think that's a good place to end it. So that's a wrap on another episode of Jeezy Chop Shop. If you if you enjoyed today's breakdown and honestly, the Diablo cow level alone was worth a full episode, but that's for another podcast. The best thing you can do right now is subscribe and leave us a rating wherever you're listening. It generally helps the show reach more people. And once more, the Jeezy Pressplay gaming newsletter is live on BI, free weekly gaming news, RPG updates, anime game collabs.

Ty (53:17.223)
Don't get this word on Snow Eater either, because Snow Eater also hurts.

Ulysses (53:22.126)
So later hurts.

Gregory (53:43.892)
and stories that matter delivered right to your inbox. Find the link in the show notes and search gzpressplay at behive.com. No spam, no noise, just gaming. We'll see you next week. Later.