"The gist of it is simple: the mechanics of following a link are not important, and should be replaced by something that can make the link stand on its own. This is important for screen readers, but also for basic scannability: a 'click here' label has a lousy scent and requires you to take in the surroundings to understand what it really does. The rule is, in effect, a variant of 'show, don’t tell.'"

A convicting read for me this weekend. I've been known to throw a link behind "here." Searching for [here] reveals 59 occurrences across this here blog. Each time I feel inclined to, I get a gut check. Sometimes the lazy way wins and I keep it. Other times I rewrite or simplify the link structure.

It reminds me of advice Stephen King gives in On Writing about using adverbs that end in "ly." If something is "surprisingly simple," odds are that it just being "simple" is more effective on the page.

Just link the appropriate words, you don't need to educate the reader where to click. Trust the reader.

I'll leave you with this other quote from Unsung's author Marcin Wichary from Raycast’s confetti cannon;

"I hate perhaps all of Google’s search easter eggs because they’re built so extremely cheaply – try searching for “do a barrel roll” or “askew” (and no, I’m not going to dignify them with links because links are my love language)."

I hope you don't mind a little creative soul searching disguised as a newsletter.

It's been seven months since I last published a video. I can't seem to find, fabricate, or defend the time necessary to get one across the finish line. It feels like things pop up and take precedence. I feel it all sinking beneath me as I tread the waters of my own creativity.

Maybe I am too rigid or particular. Maybe my editing ambitions are too high. Perhaps I need to be fast and loose; to just make make make.

Or maybe I am in a season of life where I don't have the time for writing, recording, and editing. Maybe all I have is time for one thing. I have many ideas for video essays. Perhaps, I need to drop the "video" part and write write write. What's more important? The video presentation or the sharing of the idea? It feels like a sort of madness to have all these thoughts swirling and trapped inside my brain with the only key being making a video.

This train of though got me thinking about Scott the Woz and his Scott's Stash channel. A proper episode of Scott the Woz takes quite a while to produce. Scott's Stash, while still well produced and edited, is a much faster way for Scott and his team to get videos out, try ideas, and make make make. I'm not implying I am Scott Wozniak levels of production here, but I am saying that I might need to make smaller "stash" projects instead of each thing being a "Woz" caliber deal.

I've been reading the (so far) excellent Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane and there's this passage early on in a cloud-forest (such a sick name) of Ecuador. Night has settled and these stumps begin to glow. A fungal hyphae grows inside the wood as the trees die and in the darkness it shines.

I think this incarnation of video essays is like those stumps. While they may be dying in this particular season, it doesn't mean there isn't life growing—maybe even flourishing. I may have to turn the lights off to see it though.

I'm starting to think these ideas in my note aren't videos after all, but just essays. I'll leave you all with a quote (and book) from Craig Mod;

"Things become other things."

Until next time...

Color me even more shocked when I saw this recommended and it came out two months ago.

Shame on you all for not telling me. And shame on myself for not noticing sooner. Always a treat to have new essays from Taylor and Tony.

P.S. - It turns out that this is not the first time Every Frame a Painting has teamed up with Criterion. The seem to have also done one for The Breaking Point back in 2017. Adding that one to my list.

And here I was thinking I was good at Connect 4...

I've never heard of 2swap before, but these animations and the presentation are slick as all get out.

"ProbablyMonsters' new chief marketing officer David Reid dismisses the idea that the firm is taking a scattergun approach with its releases, instead saying that they are intentionally focused on the AA space. 'We're building a portfolio, we're building a brand, and we want to show gamers that if you see the ProbablyMonsters logo on a game, it'll be something a little different.'"

I think that is exactly what is going on with ProbablyMonsters after a decade of shipping nothing and cancelling everything.

"Yet there are signs that ProbablyMonsters' new AA strategy hasn't paid off so far. Storm Lancers' all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam is just 29 according to SteamDB, and Video Game Insights estimates it has sold only 831 units on Steam (the game also came out on the Epic Games Store and Nintendo Switch, for which figures are unavailable). Similarly, Ire: A Prologue hit a player peak of 22, with VGI putting sales at just 415 units on Steam (again, the game also came out on the Epic Games Store, for which figures are not available)."

There are so few critic reviews that there is no aggregate score on Metacritic for either title.

""...we need to get serious about this publishing side of things and level up our capabilities there in the same way that we're changing how we think about development. We need to change our thoughts about how we do publishing.'"

So they need to not publish games? Because until the end of 2025, ProbablyMonsters approach to development was to just waste millions of investors dollars on kingly attire.

I miss working on my essay.

I think that's a good sign. I'm sort of treating it like Persona 5. That game took me three years to beat. There were multiple year-long lulls for me in that game. I would tell myself in a sporadic manner throughout the year to remember where I left off. I didn't want to lose the memory of the casts and plot like I had with Persona 4 Golden.¹

I am not saying this essay will take me years (I hope). But I am thinking about it regularly. I was editing a bit the other day too. It's not been abandoned.

I finished Resident Evil Requiem. I am obsessed with Marathon. I do not want to play Sons of Sparta, but I must.

This week I've realized that I set ambitious goals within small time windows. For example, my weekly note has a goal of "Write review for Marathon." That has not being accomplished this week. I did sit down and get rough thoughts and an outline down. I did record a small podcast with a friend discussing our thoughts on the game, which helped frame and define my own deeper takes on the game. I made real progress on the review, but I did not "write review for Marathon."

It reminds me of the concept of Yearly Themes from Myke Hurley and CGP Grey at Cortex. If I could summarize Yearly Themes, it'd be that resolutions are success or failure states. Those make you feel bad when you do not accomplish said goal. A theme is like a filter for decisions. Will doing this fit in with my current theme? You (theoretically) always make "progress" toward your theme, because it is more broad in its definition.

Tasks and goals do need to be accomplished, but I have realized my goals/tasks are too full. Same with this essay. The goal is "finish The Thing™." When I could be more broad with something like "work on a creative project." Maybe these looser and looser framings will just help me kick the can down the road. At some point, there does need to be forcing functions in place to make The Thing™. It's a tough balance to find and strike. Maybe next week will be better.

Until next time...

Love the advice on gear, storytelling, and dedication to authenticity.

"I think just having that approach to it allowed me, especially at a young age, to become totally lost in the process of post-production and editing and re-editing and rewriting things and redoing it, and redoing it, and redoing it in the same way you would a video game and viewing filmmaking like you would view playing a game where it's like, yes – you die. But then you come back, and you get to play the level again, and you can die again, and then get a little bit farther, and a little bit farther. And that iterative process got drilled into me by playing these games where the difficulty was way beyond my ability to play them. That helped me to view filmmaking as that same exact thing, where if you go in and do it and it doesn't work? That doesn't mean you stop and put the controller down, or that you go, “Okay, well, that's as good as I can do. So I'm just going to deliver this.” It’s like playing Dark Souls. The fun of it is trying to do it again, and again, and again, and again until you really have it right...

...I think it's fascinating to hear you refer to editing as playing a video game, because I had a similar reaction myself to Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. When my daughter and I walked out of it, we said, “I don't know how they made that. I don't know how they got all those pieces to line up.” It does seem like you basically had to solve a gigantic puzzle. And you managed to get all the pieces together like you would solving an environmental puzzle in a Zelda or something.

That's what makes it so fun. And I gotta’ say, it is also the thing that motivates my friends and I to make these things, because it doesn't feel like we are covered in mud trying to climb up a mountain, which is the way I think a lot of production often feels with us. It truly is a game where you…"

I never thought of editing like a game, but ain't that the truth. Really, all creative endeavors are like a game.

I don't love it.

Undoubtedly, it is because I have listened to Campus infinite amounts of times. Given my love of that song, I was surprised by the story of its creation. I also like this world where I missed MySpace rips of this version from 2009 or thereabouts.

Why share this now though? Because Rostam has released another cover of a Vampire Weekend song, Young Lion from their best album Modern Vampire of the City. I like this one more than the "original" version of Campus. The story of this one is also a good one.

Also, is it a cover if he wrote/co-wrote the songs? What's the ruling on that?

The headline sort of tells the whole story. It is an interesting theory from the Japanese community and one that I see reflected a bit here in North America as well.

Me: “Dragon Quest has been getting a lot of attention lately with all the remakes. It may be overtaking Final Fantasy in terms of popularity. Come to think of it, which franchise does the younger crowd prefer, Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy? I’ll ask them.”

Youngster A: “Pokémon.”

Youngster B: “Pokémon.”

Youngster C: “Pokémon.”

Youngster D: “Pokémon. I’ve never played Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.”

Me: “…”

Consistency is (Nido)king. I see tons of Nintendo and Pokémon fans lament the re-release of games like FireRed and LeafGreen or remakes like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but you can almost always count on a Pokémon title being released during the year. Combine that with all the multimedia and the sheer cross compatibility with carrying these Pokémon forward, it's no wonder the kids connect to Pokémon over other Japanese RPG titans.

An example I have seen in my life was one day working on the production team at my church and all the younger lads were talking about the new Halo remake and stating it'd be their first time with the series. What. Their worlds certainly didn't stop when Marathon came out last month. They likely kept playing Fortnite and Clash Royale.

"This lengthy interview, originally published in Gamer Handbook, captures a high-level meeting of the minds between Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and author Seikou Itou. Conducted a few months after the release of the original MOTHER, the conversation quickly turns to philosophical (and comical) musings about realism, creative exhaustion, the moral panic over kids and gaming, and Miyamoto's visionary notions of how gameplay will evolve in the future."

A lovely interview; the kind I see myself and others referring back to for the ages. It felt poignant to me given a (seemingly never-ending) discourse about realistic graphics, industry trends, technology's influence, and design.

"Miyamoto: As we become able to use more colors, it's boring if every image looks the same—if it's just "realistic" art. That's why we're seeing things finished with an illustrative touch, where the whole game has a specific "feel." Whether it's music or art, a game with a distinct worldview is just more fun. When you go that route, the individual creator's touch becomes everything."

This is exactly why a game like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is timeless in its appearance.

"Miyamoto: Well… I'm not really sure, to be honest. If I say too much, I might get in trouble! (laughs) But if I were to take a more cynical view, I'd say that what's "selling" has mostly been driven by fashion. There's a more timeless side to gaming where the players and the way they play doesn't really change all that much. But people tend to look at whatever is at the absolute peak of hype and say, "Look, this is what's selling!" To me, that's just fashion, so I really can't say where the industry is going.

Itou: Ah, I see. So in reality, every genre has its own dedicated following, and there's this steady, grounded work going on behind the scenes.

Miyamoto: Right now, all else being equal in terms of fun, the games that sell are usually the grand, large-scale RPGs with sprawling stories and worlds... games that take a long time to play through. But personally, I prefer games you can finish quickly. I think they have a much better chance of reaching a wider audience. Everyone is so focused on "long-play" games because they think that's what sells, but then something like Tetris comes along and just blows everyone away."

I mean, is there a more apt quote to describe PlayStation's pursuit of live-service titles this generation? Or the sea of open-world RPG action adventure titles that has inundated the market since the PS3 and 360 generations?

"Miyamoto: Focusing on things like "trends" or "best-sellers" might make it look like we've hit a wall, but in reality, I think the possibilities are as open as they've ever been."

I hope this applies today. I think it does, especially at Nintnedo.

Itou: Are developers really out of ideas? I can't stop wondering.

Miyamoto: I think there are still plenty of possibilities in game design. For instance, imagine a game where you input something, and when you check back a month later, it's transformed into something totally unexpected. We don't have anything like that, do we?

Or, take how people living in apartments today can't keep pets. If someone who was obsessed with the joy of having a pet made a game that captured that feeling, I think it would become a huge craze. And since it's a simulation, you could even include the "unfortunate" parts, like the pet eventually passing away, as part of the experience.

Shmuplations: It's incredible that Miyamoto's comments here in 1989 predict the coming of games like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs, or Bandai's Tamagotchi device."

Shmuplations took the words right out my mouth. It's amazing to see Miyamoto describe Nintendogs and Animal Crossing decades before their release and domination.

"Itou: You're so kind, Miyamoto.

Itoi: That's why he loves playing with kids.

Itou: I bet he does. He probably likes making funny faces and stuff like that.

Itoi: In that sense, he's a very strict person.

Miyamoto: Strict? You think so?

Itoi: Yeah. You're strict about creating a space that is truly fun to play in."

Play has always been Miyamoto's strongest tool. Being strict abut play is a, I think, wonderful way to describe it.

"Miyamoto: There's this new software on the Macintosh called HyperCard. It's a system that lets you create things that are almost like interactive picture books. It's designed so that if a creator just throws their scenario in, the system builds the world for them...

...With HyperCard, for example, you can wander through an art museum. You receive a program at the entrance, walk down the hallways, and then you can just look around. You can stand back and view five or six paintings at once, or you can step closer, close enough to examine the actual texture of the art. That kind of experience is possible now."

You know I had to include a mention about the Mac. Funny to think that 27 years later that Miyamoto would be on Apple's stage to announce Super Mario Run for iOS. I wonder if he uses a Mac...

I encourage you to read the full translated interview for many more gems.

I love the look of this alternate future where Nintendo copied Intellivision¹ with preposterous add-ons...wait...Nintendo made (and still makes) preposterous add-ons for their consoles.

Here are some beautiful photos of the NES-SY2.0 on Hultén's Instagram. And even more beautiful musical objects on his site.

"Star Fox is coming back in summer 2026...So I've been told it is a classic style Star Fox game. Ooh, I like I like I've been told the visuals are supposed to be very good, very very satisfying. And I've heard it does have online multiplayer."

A short turnaround from announcement to release would be sick for a new Star Fox title. It'd be refreshing for the IP to have a classic style title and get new love on the Switch 2. Might be all apart of the master timing given the recent reveal that Fox McCloud is in The Super Mario Galaxy movie coming out next week...

"One game that will not be releasing in holiday 2026 is 3D Mario. 3D Mario will be releasing in 2027."

No Mario until 2027 sounds reasonable, especially considering Donkey Kong Bananza came out last summer. I guess Titans is a fake "leak" after all?

"What I can share with you today is that in the second half of 2026, approaching the holidays, if not the holidays, we are going to receive an Ocarina of Time remake. For Switch 2."

Andy Robinson over at VGC had the audacity to point out this not-so-fun fact.

"A soft Ocarina remake was previously released for Nintendo 3DS in 2011. However, that was released further ago from today than the 3DS version was from the Nintendo 64 original at its time of release."

If Mario is getting a movie for his anniversary, Link should get at least a remake. A brand new version of Ocarina of Time would pop for sure. It makes me curious how far they would push the remake or play it super safe.

Overall, these announcements are cool. But, I can't help but feel a little wind was sucked out of the sails here. I talked about this a little bit in my article about the Super Mario Titans leaks;

"The fervor and discussion around leaks that may or may not be real? There's something far more enticing about blurry phone photos than a tweet from some prominent leaker. They are brazen—real or not! There's an audacity at both the person producing the photo and the information. In a way, the effort is much higher than just posting a thread and saying what you may or may not have heard."

It is far less exciting when the leak is just a statement on a podcast. If Star Fox is announced next month, it'll have a little "eh, I knew that was coming." More crucially, now we enter the phase on imagination, which has its own ramifications.

"Leaks have immense power to shape perspective. If you like the leak and it doesn't come to pass, you can become disappointed. Same happens when inverted. I think lots of folks forget to bring along their big chunks of salt to these conversations and revel in the fun of it. "

Consider this blog post heavily seasoned with salt, but your boy is still licking his proverbial lips.

"With continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we’ve made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally. We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide."

We once again no longer live in that world where a Xbox Series X cost more than a PS5 Pro.

I still cannot believe that I bought these consoles at their cheapest at launch. The PS5 Pro was not cheap!

And to keep the tradition alive, here is an all inclusive table of the current consoles with their launch prices versus their current prices.

The Switch 2 is looking like a better and better deal for people who want a console with the latest titles, great exclusives, and a fair price. If these were the prices when I was in a kid, I'd have stayed a Nintendo kid my entire life.¹

In whipping up this piece, I was reminded of my expertly timed piece Where Did the Price Drops Go from April 2025.

"It seems to me that the base price of the launch models of consoles is now a fundamental part of its identity. The price cannot drop for whatever reason these companies have."

The price can go up though, unfortunately.

I was nervous re-reading that piece given the stark jump announced this morning. Upon said re-read, I am not nervous, but I am sad. Even though the breadth of accessibility and entry into the market, the high-end goes higher and higher. My advice today would be to shop used or wait for some major holiday sale. While I do believe this sort of price increase is temporary given the RAM and storage shortages, it makes me more inclined to pick one console going forward if the initial investment is so high.

The last time this happened I did have this to say about Xbox;

"It's hard to imagine a future where I buy Xbox hardware. Without the exclusives, I don't see how a next-gen Xbox would convince me to stay in that ecosystem."

Since then, Xbox has had a wake up call and is doing a whole lot of saying of the right thing. We shall see if they deliver. Why I brought this quote up though was that comment on exclusives. Both Xbox and PlayStation are reportedly reconsidering their multi-platform release strategy. It seems the return on investment in these ports is not as high as the accountants hoped. Of course, Nintendo wisely never abandoned their exclusive strategy and remain the titan of said exclusives.

While one should never buy hardware on the promise of software, consoles are somewhat the industry exception to that rule. While I do suspect casual consumers wait for a specific title before jumping on board with a new console, I wager the vast majority of consumers do buy into a platform with the hope for a new Super Smash Bros. or a Gran Turismo or a new Halo. As the console price ascends, these exclusives will become even more and more important to making sure customers pick your box over the competition. If I can get Halo alongside the new Wolverine game on my PS5, why would I buy an Xbox?

I wonder if these price increases and parts shortages will help solidify the extension of this generation too. Rumors are swirling about internal dates sliding back for PS6. Project Helix is reportedly shipping dev kits next year. This uncertainty feels like an added layer to decision making consumers may have to face.

These price increases will be a black spot on the generation for sure. One marred by live service pursuits and billions spent in acquisitions. It will be an all-timer generation and not always for the right reasons. Kind of like an inverse of the PS3 lifecycle: started bad at $599 and ended at $250~.

A little afternoon digging tells me that QuickTime 7 got its last update sometime between 2009 and 2011. Apple support says QuickTime 7 isn't compatible with macOS after 10.14 Mojave, which came out in 2018. That lines up with the Touch Bar MacBook Pro clearly seen. And Tenet came out in 2020, so it all makes sense.

But seeing this in 2026 and for a movie that had a budget of $205 million, I wasn't expecting to see QuickTime 7 of all things. I wonder what QuickTime 7 does that X does not for the crew.

The real kicker isn't QuickTime 7 though—it's the monitor I saw later in the doco.

That appears to be an Apple Cinema Display, which was released between 1999 and 2011. While I can't measure the display size from that screenshot, the design looks like it might be a 30'' model from 2004~2008. If so, that display had a resolution of 2560x1600, but only if using a dual-link DVI cable. If not, Wikipedia tells me, that it will only run at 1280x800.

You gotta wonder if this same tech was used on Oppenheimer or The Odyssey. Nolan may care about the latest IMAX tech, but it seems that the outstanding crew around him are believers in, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Impressive.

"When you open a website on your phone, it's like participating in a high-frequency financial trading market. That heat you feel on the back of your phone? The sudden whirring of fans on your laptop? Contributing to that plus battery usage are a combination of these tiny scripts.

Ironically, this surveillance apparatus initializes alongside requests fetchingpurr.nytimes.com/tcf which I can only assume is Europe's IAB transparency and consent framework. They named the consent framework endpoint purr. A cat purring while it rifles through your pockets."

Having written for the likes of IGN and DualShockers, tracking and clicks aren't just the name of the game—it is the game. Browsing the web is a harrowing experience these days. As the tech guy in my family, I make sure my network and everyone's phones are loaded with blockers to help them. I can't tell you how much it breaks my heart to see my mom battling ads just to try and read a recipe on her iPad.

"As a publisher, you can't force a user through 3-4 dismissive actions before content is properly visible and expect the experience to be appreciated. Doing so is equivalent to burning your user's cognitive budget before value is delivered. The business excuse of, "We need compliance and lead generation" doesn't end up benefiting the user. If they haven't read a single word of your journalism, why would they subscribe to you?"

A question I have been asking myself for years.

Given the recent redesign of Max Frequency and it being written entirely with Claude Code, I was curious (and nervous) that it loaded a ton of bloat despite my only analytics being Plausible (which you can see live if you are curious). Loading up the home page today, I was mortified to see 37MB.

Then I realized the site was just trying to load the episode of The Max Frequency Podcast at the top. Going to a more traditional page, the size was a much more respectable 878KB.¹

If you'd like a more interactive version of Bose's superb post, I implore you to check out the equally superb—albeit funnier—How to Monetize a Blog from modem.io.² Maybe Bose, Gruber, and myself ought to take some advice...

• Download (37MB) — Episode Transcript

Show Notes

A Selfish Question

• Myke's love of Father of the Bride on Connected 245: Totes Ricky
  • Timestamp
• Father of the Bride by Vampire Weekend
  • Music
  • Spotify
• Only God Was Above Us by Vampire Weekend
  • Music
  • Spotify
• Jungle Essentials Playlist on Music
  • Max did indeed recognize Jungle from Tales from the Borderlands

The Podcasts Myke Listens To

• Kinda Funny
• The Rest is History
  • The JFK Assassination episodes
• The Vergecast
• Hard Fork
• Waveform
• The Town
• Diggnation
• TwiT
• Podcasts Are Group Therapy Sessions for Pro Wrestling Fans by Nicholas Deleon for Vice

The Current Landscape

• Steve Jobs Announcing Podcasts in iTunes at WWDC 2005
• Amy Poehler Wins Best Podcast
• Joe Rogan Goes Exclusive to Spotify
• Netflix and iHeartMedia Announce Exclusive Video Podcast Partnership
• Netflix just unveiled its first big podcasts that are all-new
• Riverside
• State of the Workflow: Going From a Newsroom to Being Independent, With Becca Farsace
  • One of Myke's Instagram Clips

Designing a Podcast

• Cortex #167 - Ten Years of Cortex

Designing State of the Workflow

• CMD Space #1 - I'm Yelling At Me, With Merlin Mann
• Proving Something to Myself – The Enthusiast
• Scott the Woz
• Which YouTuber Knows Apple's Silly Lingo Best? – Snazzy Labs
• Cortex #174: Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)
• MFP03 - “Cuddle Up & Play the Vita” with Roger Pokorny

Podcasting and Fatherhood

• Cortex #162: 2025 Yearly Themes
  • Timestamp to Myke's reveal of "The Year of Fatherhood"

Myke Hurley

• Relay
• Cortex Brand
• Cross Forward
• The Enthusiast - Myke's Blog
• Myke's Instagram
• Myke's Bluesky

Max Frequency - Max's home online

Chapter Select - A seasonal, retrospective podcast where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy.

Max Roberts' Video Essays - A YouTube channel dedicated to Max's video essays on games.

"It’s called Super Mario Titans and it’s basically a full open world 3D Mario. every world you find a new ally and instead of them just following you around you actually level them up by doing platforming stages together. Once they’re strong enough they unlock this superhero Titan form and team up with Mario to take down that worlds boss and overcome platforming challengs (sic) in the open world."

And some of the images are majestic.

From what I can glean on the reddit threads and the GBA Temp forums, the vocal think it is fake, AI, blah, blah, blah. Then there is the other half of the vocal posters that are analyzing, defending, blah, blah, blah. I'm not here to really argue if this is a leak or a "leak." What I want to talk about is how I miss stories like this one.

Do you remember Sonic being unlockable in Melee? I'll never forget the "Grinch leak," so cleverly named for the Grinch ad in the periphery. I remember writing an analysis on the "leak" for The Last of Us Part II from E3 2016.

Okay, so all three of those examples were for fake leaks. There are classic leaks with larger implications than the next Smash roster, like the "adorably" all-digital Xbox Series X, or the infamous Insomniac leak, or the very real leaks for The Last of Us Part II. But there's something about these fake ones that I love and miss.

The fervor and discussion around leaks that may or may not be real? There's something far more enticing about blurry phone photos than a tweet from some prominent leaker. They are brazen—real or not! There's an audacity at both the person producing the photo and the information. In a way, the effort is much higher than just posting a thread and saying what you may or may not have heard.

If this is all fake, I say bravo! The ballsy craftsmanship on display is worth some applause. If it is real, I say bravo! The ballsy photography on display is worth similar applause. What is more impressive is that I find that big Nintendo games rarely leak in this fashion. I remember lauding the fact that the Switch 2 reveal may have had zero secrets for the hardware, but the game lineup was a mystery.

More impressive though is that the games haven't leaked. Perhaps the word is not "impressive," but rather that it is more exciting. If the Switch 2 is really due out in April (which feels shockingly soon and overdue at the same time), then the console is being manufactured right now. Of course the leaks are going to burst forth. Since all the first-party games are made, you know, in Nintendo, the control around the conversation is much more tight lipped. And why do we buy the hardware? To play the games!

When that control around the conversation breaks, it makes for a fun and speculative time. Oh, if we were still doing Millennial Gaming Speak, we'd have a fun time with this story.

Leaks have immense power to shape perspective. If you like the leak and it doesn't come to pass, you can become disappointed. Same happens when inverted. I think lots of folks forget to bring along their big chunks of salt to these conversations and revel in the fun of it.

This is not to say that leaks have devastating consequences. Look no further than horrific response to The Last of Us Part II leaking—those still haunt that studio to this day. Insomniac's entire business was laid bare. We know what that studio is doing for the next decade. If this Super Mario Titans is real, I know the team is crushed to have its surprise reveal have wind sucked out of its sails and not be able to respond.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say I had fun this afternoon poking around threads and gawking at the images. I had fun writing this very blog post! And now I will have more fun by leaning into conjecture mode and my two cents on this game if it is indeed real. Let's look at more of the supposed description of the game;

"Each world has warp portals that take you to more traditional tight platforming levels. Not like Odyssey’s quick little side rooms but more like full on 3D World style stages. You can instantly switch between Mario and your ally like the Lego games just by tapping a button. Beating these stages is how your ally levels up.
Some stages are locked until you have enough emblems so you have to explore the open world and collect them to unlock more levels.

Allies aren’t just for the stages. You use them all over the open world to reach hidden paths clear obstacles Mario can’t handle alone and open shortcuts."

Honestly, it sounds kinda sick. It's that nice fusion of Odyssey's transformations and Super Mario 3D World's multiplayer and character differences. Throw in a little Bowser's Fury's¹ kaiju boss battles and you got a neat sounding loop. I think the costumes and gimmicks look goofy, but feel inline with the costume element in Odyssey.

The main hook is the Titan superhero powers for Mario and the allies mostly used for bosses and big moments but the core of it is still classic Mario exploring worlds collecting emblems unlocking proper platforming stages powering up your crew and beating each world boss to grab the jewel.

I can see the multiplayer hook that Nintendo loves their Mario games to have. I see the evolution from the more recent titles. Beeg Koopa is clearly a successor to Beeg Yosh. I like it. I want to believe it. Only time will tell if it was all a hoax or a leak for the ages. Either way, I had a fun time and am looking forward to whatever the next 3D Mario game ends up being.

"Since the mid-2000s, each new live service success has enamored those with power in the video game industry, and investment in that kind of game increased. Yet, as new live services were being worked on, successful live service games continued to thrive, and their communities became ever more entrenched.

Each new challenger in the live service space faces a more daunting challenge than the last, and the threat of comparison to all the failures that have come before. I’ve seen people online jokingly refer to Highguard as 'Concord 2.' The next controversial live service game will likely be labeled 'the next Highguard,' and curse its chances at success in an already tumult-filled game industry."

When I talked about Highguard on Controlled Interests Gamecast #274 I described it as a game mode, not a game. I stand by that in the aftermath of its shutdown. The systems, world, and loop did not have the legs to stand amongst the Fortnites, Call of Duties, and Rainbow Six Sieges of the world. Sure, new games can enter and disrupt – I think Arc Raiders (and perhaps Marathon) – are doing that. There will always be those games that come along, but Highguard never was one of those and it was apparent from the moment you booted it up.

It closing the 2025 Game Awards just shown a spotlight on a mediocre/mid game. Now, to be fair, the wider gaming internet wildly overreacted and certainly did not help. But if you, ya know, played the game, you'd know it didn't have the sauce.

I've had a come to Jesus moment with myself and the balance of editing this Memento/TLOUPII essay. I've realized that I did not set a hard enough deadline and things with more urgency have come up. The video has to take a spot on the back burner while I clear the decks.

I know it sounds like an excuse or that I am complaining, but I'm not. The decks are good; even better—they are fun.

I haven't mentioned it elsewhere yet, but somehow, I ended up with a review code for Marathon. I have a wonderful obligation to review Bungie's latest. It doesn't hurt that it has awoken my long dormant Destiny-pilled brain. The itch to play hasn't been satisfied since launch.

Then, I've got episodes of Chapter Select to make about God of War: Sons of Sparta and Resident Evil Requiem. These take precedence due to a somewhat timely nature—not that our show is all that timely. RE9 is an honest-to-goodness wild ride and offers some of gaming's best kinds of moments. Sons of Sparta does not.

What a time to be me with my tastes in games!

It also bums me out though, because I have not been able to give this essay the time it deserves. I have given it some, but not all. And I don't think I can until these projects are complete. And I have been beating myself up over this for the past three weeks. My time does not feel managed well (see the fact it has taken three weeks to write this) and I was bumming myself out. I was feeling guilty for playing or preparing for a project that wasn't the essay.

And it just sort of dawned on me that I shouldn't be doing that. The video is gonna be great. And I have a strong drive to finish it. But, I didn't use the mighty tool that is a deadline to get it shipped out before these known incoming obligations/projects. When I accepted that, I felt better about everything everywhere all at once. I felt good about taking the time to complete runs in Marathon. I felt great about squeezing in a 90 minute session in RE9 last night, causing myself to stay up until midnight.

The decks will be cleared and my essay is waiting for me to come back in earnest. That's not to say I haven't done some editing. Last time, I was working on one of my favorite visuals and it involves Tenet and a PS3.

And, of course, I still suffer from the affliction that is "too many ideas to write about." Not sure what will be next, but I know I have good ideas. The challenge is turning them into a reality.

Until next time...

On one hand, it’s fine to suggest that writers incorporate more sensory details and scene-setting into their storytelling. On the other hand, though, why bother to launder such anodyne advice through the stolen persona of a writer like John Carreyrou?

The answer, of course, is that Carreyrou is a master craftsman whose authority as a writer speaks for itself. Grammarly, on the other hand, is a soulless machine-learning operation that is struggling to stay ahead of the further advances in AI that will make it irrelevant. Lots of people would love to write like Carreyrou; no one is striving to write like Grammarly.

Grammarly has since "disabled" the "feature."

This new debacle in the AI writing space reminds me of the superb video essay You are a better writer than AI. (Yes, you.).

I've never liked Grammarly. It never made sense to me when spellcheck and the like are so well integrated into operating systems. I recall one publication I wrote for requiring it be installed. The software was clunky, ugly, and invasive. I'm fairly sure I uninstalled it without telling them. This "expert" recommendation looks clunky, ugly, and invasive. I do find it hilarious that Grammarly would deploy recommendations from some of AI's biggest critics.

I would be more annoyed at Grammarly’s appropriation of my likeness, and the likeness of so many of my friends and other writers that I admire, if it weren’t for the sheer desperation evidenced by the move. A standalone writing assistant made for a fine business in 2009, when Grammarly launched; in 2026, it’s a commodity feature. Anyone with access to Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini can already get editing that makes Grammarly's core product look like a relic.

"Alan Kay famously said, 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware'; my variation is that creators who are really serious about building a career on the Internet should own their own software. I can now speak from experience when I say it’s one of the best feelings in the world."

While I didn't hire developers and spend ages building a custom tool for my business, I did have Claude Code build me a blog tailored to my needs and taste. It's the first time in my life that my blog is wholly my own.

It feels pretty great.

Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console.

Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!

The team also published a little logo teaser video.

Scorpio was a cooler name.

The takeaway here though is the confirmation that this will be some sort of hybrid machine to allow Xbox and PC gaming. My buddy Logan Moore pointed out to me though that this has the potential to paint themselves deeper in this corner. If Steam games work on this box, Steam gets the money from game sales, not Xbox. It's the same boat as Game Pass saying you don't need to buy our games, just subscribe for them.

But for me, the part I want to know is if this console will have a disc drive. The backward compatibility story that Xbox has written so well these last two gens is at risk if they offer no disc drive,

I'm getting more antsy about what Xbox's messaging will be this summer.

The blog roll is back baby!

And a little side-by-side for you.

Let me give you the tour this time before diving into the how this design came about.

Breaking Down the Redesign

Right away, the landing page style Home is gone. I never loved it. I "had" to use one given the nature of Obsidian Publish, my previous host. Since everything was launched out of markdown files in Obsidian, I needed a home page to anchor the digital garden approach that is core to the app. I suppose I could have done some huge long embedded note of all my other notes, but that'd be unwieldy and ugly.

To me, the core of a blog's presentation is the feed. ¹ It has been irksome to me to not have one. I tried workarounds like a dataview query that renders the 15 most recent posts and embedding that into the homepage. It's not the same. I think natural discoverability has been kneecapped for the last two years.

Beneath that "Latest & Greatest" list was another list idea that I implemented last summer dubbed "Previously On Max Frequency." The premise is simple—show a list of articles published on the day you're visiting the site from the past. In Obsidian Publish, that requires updating said list every day for the info to be accurate.

Of course, the new blog's list updates automatically. With the return of the blog feed, I couldn't put that list at the bottom, so I opted to put it on the right-hand side. I think it balances out the menu on the left. Actually, I tried to balance all four corners. The menu and the memories up top. The "Now Playing" music status and the fun little emoji and links on the bottom.

Let's zero in on the articles themselves.

We got a headline, the date, and another long-desired feature—a lil permalink icon. A feature I’ve admired for years on other blogs is this ability to send folks to the source when they click the headline and they can go to your permalinked version of the article by clicking a little icon.

This functionality feels so core to the big "I" Internet and blogging. I don't know for sure, but it must be a pillar behind the ideas like "retweets" and share posting. I want to point people to the source, not just my thoughts on said source. A recent example is this review about Mario Tennis Fever. I want my audience to go read Jake Steinberg's piece and I hope my gawking at it will point them to it. I also know people online want as little friction as possible. It couldn't be any easier than just clicking the heading in the blog roll. If you want my link, I wager your can figure it out. I'm trusting my audience with that one.

That's the core reading experience—low friction, up front, simple. How about older stuff? What about the things buried by the feed? That's where the Archive comes in.

Yeah. This is much, much better. No more folder hierarchy and spelunking my organizational structure. I wanted to give you a list of years, articles, and a search. Speaking of the search, it just takes you to Google. Lean and snappy without a need for some sort of searchable database on my backend. Why not just let the company that does this for a living handle it?

The URL structure here is straightforward too. The whole deal is at /archive. You can zero in on a specific year by clicking the links at the top or just by adding it to the url, /archive/2020. Want the month? Add that too, archive/2020/06.

Moving on down to the Podcasts page, we see the same solution to the archive applied to The Max Frequency Podcast. I had to just render the ten most recent episodes. Now, you get a simple list of them all. These pages act like a hub of sorts. This hub mentality is crucial for my Game Library and Game Notes.

Before, Game Notes just existed inside a folder; no structure beyond being alphabetized. My thought was always that the Game Library would be a hub page of sorts for the game and you could find my notes there. The Game Library itself has been a slow process to be sure, but this new blog gives readers a much easier to navigate collection. It's so much more visually appealing too. The art I was already using renders nicely on these tiny cards.

The pages for Memory Card, Chasing the Stick, About. Gear, and Now are all the same. Those are fairly static pages or I had already designed them the way I wanted within Obsidian and I don't feel they need a refresh.

A new page in the menu though is Feeds. A few months ago, I made a sort of master RSS feed by combining all my Max Frequency related feeds into one with RSSRSSRSSRSS. This page offers up all of those feeds individually for those into RSS.

Now, another grievance I have had with Obsidian Publish (and a big spur to giddy up this redesign) was the RSS feed support for Publish is abysmal. It fetches only the title, no body content. If I move a file to a different folder, then Publish would flood the feed with "new" old articles.² When I was fireballed last year, I got quite a few requests for the RSS feed—so much so that I added it to the Home page—even though I was embarrassed by Publish's performance.

I no longer need to be embarrassed because this transition has given me a full and proper RSS feed that works exactly like an RSS feed should. It looks great inside Current and NetNewsWire, but the looks are all the developers. I am so pleased to have this functionality back and not shamefully share my RSS feed.

One element of the new blog experience I haven't touched on yet is mobile. I am biased, but it looks great there too.

The blog feed takes center stage, of course. Appearance controls and the menu are in the upper right. Opening the menu reveals, yes the menu, but also the Now Playing music indicator. I kept the nav anchored to the right, since your finger just pressed the menu button to open it. No sense in making you then stretch across to the other side of the screen. If you click into an article and reach the bottom, that is where you will find the "Previously On" list, emoji, etc. I think the reading and navigation experience really lend themselves to mobile.

I considered iPad as well, at least my pink iPad we just bought a few months ago. Browsing on iPad is a fusion of desktop and mobile, so I was sure to make sure both worked automatically on iPad depending on the device orientation.

And that's it. I think? One big unseen element is fixing 170~ broken links and recreating all my podcast transcripts into markdown from PDF; much faster and lighter. There's plenty of smaller things too, like those popup footnotes and integrating lite-youtube-embed. There may be a "hidden" page or two. Overall though, the presentation of Max Frequency is in alignment with my tastes. I hope it is in alignment with yours too.

But how did I make it?

The How

Claude Code. That's the how.

Been working on a site idea at work and using Claude Code for that. It feels like everyone is out here making apps and projects with these agentic AI coders. I wondered, "Can Claude Code build me my dream blog? The blog I've been envisioning for the last 13 years?" Obviously, the answer is yes.

That question hit me one afternoon and I decided to try it out in the most vibe code-y way possible—while cooking dinner.

I finally used my MacBook Pro as a laptop and took it inside to run Claude Code while I cooked dinner for my family. Since it was a pure test and I gave it a small sample size, I was basically pressing ⌘ + ⏎ every few minutes. No risk at all. The first result was recognizable, but broken. More importantly though, this convinced me it was doable.

The next day or two was a hyperfocused blur of tuning and getting the site dialed in. Fervent back and forth with Claude. After getting the shape of it, I decided to spend the following days, weeks co-publishing to the platform and Obsidian Publish. You notice missing elements and breaks this way. For example, the RSS feed was only sharing blog posts, not podcasts, newsletters, etc., or how callouts were jank and the Game Library entries weren't formatting correctly.

The living with the blog is vital. I went to grab a link for friend and went to my Publish blog since that was the most accessible—it felt outdated and clunky. That's when I knew I chose the right direction.

Before wrapping up, I wanted to highlight some gains and losses here.

All right, the table is jokey, but true. The way I write Max Frequency has not changed. I could flip Obsidian Publish back on in 5 minutes and the site would be back in business. I could move to a different static site generator. Right now, everything is running through GitHub and CloudFlare Pages all for $0 from my $96 per year from Obsidian, which by the way, is due here in April...

While I am not locked into a platform or a service provider. I am locked into Claude for changes, improvements, and troubleshooting. That is a form of lock in. As ubiquitous as AI is becoming, I don't think it's too rigid a form of lock in. At this moment, the capabilities it has given me far outweigh the lock in cage. With everything I write still be markdown, I am not worried about needing to pivot somewhere else some day should I need to abandon this custom site.

Conclusion

In all of this, I went back and read my old posts on previous redesigns of the site. Two quotes from The Max Frequency 2024 Redesign stand out to me;

"That Spring I reached out in the Relay FM Discord to see if I could hire someone. I knew what I wanted – some sort of hosting from a service like Linode or something. My issue was my web programming knowledge capped off at the basics of HTML and CSS. I knew the destination, I just didn't know how to get there."

Moving everything to Markdown and Publish has given me something I've never had in all my years of writing online.

Flexibility. Freedom.

I have the flexibility to make my site look the way I (currently) want, without the need of a $300 tier to access Wordpress plugins. I have the flexibility to write and publish how I want. I have the flexibility to use the tools I want—and ignore the tools I don't.

I have the freedom to leave Publish at any time without losing my articles, links, or data. I have the freedom to not worry about mega-corporate owners selling my work from under me. I have the freedom to write and publish what I want, when I want.

I probably could never have afforded a developer. I remember being pointed to solutions, but not to someone who could take my plain speech and turn it into a website. Claude is that for me now.

The move to markdown and Publish did give me freedom and flexibility. I did have the freedom to leave when I wanted. I'm doing it now. Over the next day or two, this whole switch is going to take place. Who am I kidding, it'll happen tomorrow. The RSS feed is the same - https://maxfrequency.net/rss.xml - so that should update seamlessly for all you current subscribers. I don't know what will break or hang up. It might be a bumpier launch than I expect: That's why I wanted to tell you all first. Thank you for your patience. Please be excited for the new design.

I hope you enjoy.

I wanted to write that day or weekend, but life got in the way and I knew that more would come out in the following days. There is much to glean inside the company when this all went down. The mess that Xbox has made of itself this generation becomes more clear in the aftermath of the restructuring.

That Friday was full of people assuming Sarah Bond was sidelined for an AI exec by Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella. For years, many have assumed that Bond would be the replacement for Spencer, including myself. Emails were leaked and Bond was only mentioned in Spencer's. This all seemed fishy to me and I was right. This story was meant for the following Monday and McCaffrey got the leak.¹

"Spencer, in his email to Microsoft staff, said in part: 'Last fall, I shared with Satya that I was thinking about stepping back and starting the next chapter of my life. From that moment, we aligned on approaching this transition with intention, ensuring stability, and strengthening the foundation we’ve built. Xbox has always been more than a business. It’s a vibrant community of players, creators, and teams who care deeply about what we build and how we build it. And it deserves a thoughtful, deliberate plan for the road ahead. 

'Today marks an exciting new chapter for Microsoft Gaming as Asha Sharma steps into the role of CEO, and I want to be the first to welcome her to this incredible team. Working with her over the past several months has given me tremendous confidence. She brings genuine curiosity, clarity and a deep commitment to understanding players, creators, and the decisions that shape our future. We know this is an important moment for our fans, partners, and team, and we’re committed to getting it right. I’ll remain in an advisory role through the summer to support a smooth handoff.'

Tom Warren at The Verge got the back half of the scoop with the inside look at the shake up and the weekend that ensued following IGN's report.

"Spencer’s decision led to months of careful successor planning. It was announced to the world on Friday, but it was supposed to be today. Microsoft was forced to announce early because it started to leak and IGN was planning to run a story, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That kicked off a day of chaos..."

I remember a lot of heated discussion around Bond's LinkedIn post looking like she was out of the loop. I knew Bond doesn't manage her own LinkedIn (although she might be now), and this was just a casualty of reporting. I couldn't imagine a world where this succession wasn't planned and known by all major players involved and I was right.

In early 2024, there were departures at Xbox that caused the command chain to funnel more directly to Bond, herself recently promoted to the president of Xbox. This included the Chief Marketing Officer. Warren with the internal vibes;

"That meant the Xbox marketing team was now reporting directly to Bond. A month later, Microsoft delivered a marketing campaign that signalled people didn’t need to buy an Xbox console anymore. The message was that 'you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox,' because games were available through Xbox Cloud Gaming on TVs.

This was all part of the 'Xbox everywhere' strategy that Bond had been pursuing, a vision to move the Xbox brand beyond its roots in console hardware. Months later the “This is an Xbox” campaign launched, with commercials that positioned a phone or a tablet as an Xbox instead of just a console. It was a confusing campaign, and I’m told it offended many Xbox employees internally."

It offended many people outside of Xbox. The writing was on the wall all gen though, as I have written about.

"The pivot away from console, led by Bond, under Spencer’s direction, hasn’t gone well for Xbox. Microsoft’s Xbox hardware revenue has declined for three financial years in a row, and it looks like those declining revenues are going to continue throughout fiscal 2026."

You don't say?

While focusing on Xbox as a publisher and service, instead of a console with a library of games, Xbox leadership's eye was off the ball with the supply chain and AI's rabid consumption of RAM, GPUs, and silicon—a rabid consumption that their parent company frenetically feeds.

Warren's piece and quotes from folks inside put Bond as the muscle behind the push for cloud, mobile, etc. I believe it, but "the pivot away from console, led by Bond, under Spencer's direction..." is the key to me. She may have been the face, but Phil has for years championed cloud gaming, mobile, etc. I mean, this is the guy that green lit Gears Pop! and was no doubt looking at King and Candy Crush as sweet additions to the portfolio during the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Do not be fooled—the pivot away from console was Phil.

“I don’t think it’s ‘hardware agnostic’ as much as it’s ‘where you want to play,’”

Which makes Sharma's email to the team more striking. She says all the right things, top to bottom, with a top three of "great games," "the return of Xbox," and the "future of play."

"We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are."

I mean, to be fair, there's at least one more Xbox console in the wings. It's been talked about and teased for years now. Last summer they announced the multi-year AMD deal for custom silicon, which is crucial in this day and age of consoles.

"This week, Xbox announced it is actively building its next-generation lineup across console, handheld, PC, cloud, and accessories. As part of this, Xbox unveiled that it has entered into a strategic, multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including future first-party consoles and cloud."

My favorite part of Sharma's email was this;

"To meet the moment, we will invent new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have: iconic teams, characters, and worlds that people love. But we will not treat those worlds as static IP to milk and monetize. We will build a shared platform and tools that empower developers and players to create and share their own stories. 

"As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us."

That last paragraph was clearly crafted to target the immediate backlash her previous position brought with it. Back to Warren with insider concerns;

"Some Xbox employees worry she’ll force AI into everything Xbox does, but Sharma was clearly ready for that reaction."

I mean, Microsoft is their parent company. A year ago Xbox announced a generative model for gameplay dubbed Muse that I have meant to write about now for apparently a year. AI is taking the technology and gaming industries, let alone the world, by storm. I will say, the gaming communities absolute total rejection of the technology is ridiculous. There are untold gains and benefits to be had with the capabilities that AI brings. The important element is to use it for what it is—a tool.

I think a prime example of this was last year's overhyped "indie" darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 where the use of AI in its development was revealed after it won hearts and awards. Doesn't make the game any less good knowing the dev team of 30~ people used some AI tools along the way. The community seemed to do a total 180 and bite back. Absolute ridiculousness.

Jez Corden over at Windows Central actually got to interview Sharma and Booty. The latter's statement to about AI and wrongly speculated "mandates" rings true to me.

"'Just as a group, game developers are always eager to adopt new technology. When Photoshop showed up, it took about one month for it to appear in every game studio on the planet because it was so useful,' Matt noted that Xbox's goal is for AI to be additive and supportive, rather than disruptive on its teams. 'What I hear throughout our studios: it is the people, our artists, our coders, the writers — they're doing the creative work. In my experience, any time there's a new technology, what happens is there's a need for more specialists, new specialists. It raises the bar on what the expectations are for the quality of the games.'"

Back to Sharma and her leadership sensibilities.

"Xbox notoriously ditched any form of exclusivity on its games, shifting units to PlayStation paying little mind to the criticisms that it reduces the need to actually buy an Xbox. Sharma told me that nothing is off the table when it comes to revising Xbox's strategy — but finalizing the strategy will take time, and data parsing...

"'...Right now, I need to learn, candidly. About the 'why' of these decisions, what we were optimizing for, and what the data says about the Xbox strategy today. That's the honest answer. I'm looking at lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment, or in short term efficiencies and things like that. The plan's the plan until it's not the plan.'"

One can only hope that this means the end of advertising everything is an Xbox. If you are a jack of all hardware, you are the master of none. It does make me wonder how the decisions for the next Xbox made back with Spencer and Bond will be compatible with the new leadership and however they decide to steer the ship. Perhaps the rumored "don't call it a delay" delays due to parts shortages will be a blessing in disguise—if the Series consoles can survive that long. Microsoft may need to eat crow to keep the new box price as low as possible.

Booty was even so bold as to claim that Xbox is committed to being a first-party developer and company, despite porting everything everywhere all at once.

"We're committed to being a first-party games publisher in partnership with our first-party platform team."

That I will believe when I see. But Sharma continues to say the right things, emphasis my own;

"I will listen, I will learn, I will communicate what we're seeing, and what we're doing. I think from here, the work is proof over promise. Matt and I are in it, every hour of every day of every night, I am fully in this thing. This team has brought it back before, and I'm here to help us do it again."

Xbox was dying on the vine before this shake up. It has been poisoned by decisions made to control the living room. It has been drowned by the billions of dollars poured out in acquisition. It has had studios—new and old—wither into oblivion.

The immediate future shows signs of life though. For the first time in ages, Halo, Gears, Forza, and Fable come out in the same year—from teams that make superb games to boot!² This change in leadership may just be fertile ground that Xbox the company, the brand, and the community need. It's a wake up call. Time to see how Sharma and Booty will answer.