Friday and welcome to the land show.

We've got a great show lined up for you

guys this week. Actually, this there's

lots of fun stuff. Nvidia has provided

new details on their Vera data center

CPUs and this raised Luke's eyebrows

just a bit. Yeah, see he did it. You

couldn't see it because it was the one

that was closer to me, but he did it. He

did it again.

I am really really excited about them

and what they might mean for the future

of CPU micro architectures that will I I

will lay out a case for this hopefully

make their way to gamers and be a major

benefit. In other news,

Framework had a bit of a rough week,

investment disclosure,

um,

with respect to pricing of memory

modules in their laptops. We'll get into

that a little bit more later. What else

we got?

>> Uh, Microsoft introduces Xbox backwards

compatibility program on PC. Exciting.

Interesting

>> for Xbox games.

>> Kind of confusing. We'll get into it.

Um, also Fallout 5,

Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters. Also

a new Obsidian Fallout. All of this

stuff was announced. Maybe Bethesda will

use an IP for the first time in I don't

know, over a decade, I think. Cool. I

heard you're supposed to do that as a

company.

>> Yeah, I heard you're supposed to IP

freely. Oh, I pressed the wrong one.

Damn. [laughter]

>> What the

Oh, good. The foot cam is there.

I just got jump scared by my own feet.

My feet are so touching [music] the

floor. The show is brought to you by

Shocks, AMD, Squarespace, and XSplit,

alongside our rap partner Dbrand, our

laptop partner Razer, and our chair

partner who is also Razer. Why don't we

jump right into our headline topic for

the day, which is of course I actually

forget which one we picked.

>> Nvidia CPU.

>> Oh yes, I want to talk about that. Okay,

so the original source here was actually

some analysis from my old buddy Mr. Ryan

Shrout who used to run PC perspective

and then was working at Intel for a

little while and then now is kind of

doing this whole like analyst thing. And

so I was looking at his analysis and he

kind of laid out a bunch of the details

that Nvidia is providing about their new

Vera CPUs. Vera is built on the Olympus

core which is Nvidia's first custom

core. So, while Grace was a

custom-designed

CPU, um it was a partnership between

Nvidia and MediaTek, the actual cores

themselves were offthe-shelf pretty much

ARM cores. It's a matter of laying them

out and uh you know, figuring out all of

your IO and how to integrate it into

your bigger system. This time around,

we're looking at a custom a custom core.

This is an Nvidia design from the ground

up. And this is what gets me excited.

It's 88 cores on a monolithic compute

die running 176 threads using what

Nvidia calls spatial multi-threading.

Okay. Where is he going with this?

>> Yeah. Meanwhile, companies like AMD have

upcoming epic CPUs that are going to

have as much as 256

Zen 6C cores. What could possibly make

me excited about 88 cores uh on some ARM

CPU that is destined for the data

center?

>> You still don't know where I'm going

with this.

>> This is still the question I had.

>> Wonderful. Okay.

What I'm excited about is that for the

last

20 years, okay, everything has been

okay, we'll give you some singlethreaded

improvements, but really what we're

building is better power efficiency and

better multicore for the data center so

that they can take all those cores and

they can slice them all up into cloud

instances for all of their customers.

Big fating deal for my Counter-Strike

frame rate. Nvidia is coming in and

going, "No, what the market actually

needs is big, strong cores and not as

many of them." Now, the reason is not

one that's likely to excite you guys.

The reason is that Nvidia is looking for

huge performance uplifts in agentic AI

and and right now what the data centers

what the hyperscalers are running into

is they've got these super super

expensive GPU farms

>> and for agentic workloads you actually

need a ton of CPU to coordinate work or

those GPU farms are sitting idle and

Nvidia's solution is hey we need not

only a ton of CPU cores but we actually

need an absolute butt ton of performance

per core. Now, why does this excite me

as a gamer? Because again, this this

product is not for me. Vera is not for

me. I'm getting there. Grace

already made its way into a desktop PC

in the form of the DGX Spark.

>> True.

>> The DGX Spark chip was repurposed

already announced. Coming in Q4, I think

Nvidia announced I I forget. I forget

the details, but coming this year, they

already announced RTX Spark, which uses

those same gray CPU cores that were in

the data center and then made their way

to a workstation and then to a desktop

and then to laptops.

I think we can draw a pretty straight

line to Vera is going to be in the data

center, is going to be in workstations,

is going to be in desktops and laptops.

And

from what I saw at Computex, I mean, did

you did you see the Nvidia demos?

>> No.

>> They were just like running Fortnite and

like running Alen Wake and like running

the software that you would want to run.

>> Yeah.

>> On ARM.

>> It's what

>> it is. It is nice that Qualcomm did this

for everybody. [laughter]

>> Don't Don't get yourself Don't don't kid

yourself. Nvidia is putting in the work

too

>> on the gaming side in particular. Like

that was the first slide they brought up

at least for me was hey we have more

gaming relationships than quite

literally anybody

>> did a lot of work on the gaming side

>> they did

>> I think they opened the door I'm not

saying Nvidia is not doing anything

that's not my point

>> depending on how far back you want to go

Nvidia opened the door first actually

you want to talk 2

>> okay

>> yeah I know that's fair

>> it's clear that Qualcomm has been

putting in a lot of work that's very

clear but it's also clear that nobody

but Nvidia has the weight

>> to throw behind the major gaming studios

and go, "No, but actually you will

support this."

>> Yeah.

>> Period.

>> I think that's valid. Yeah.

>> And so there I was looking at real

actual games that real actual gamers

want to play running on ARM.

Now with this custom core, somebody

finally after all these freaking years

is going, "You know what would actually

be pretty great? if somebody made a CPU

that had a more powerful core instead of

more and more and more of them. And so

in in response to your excuse me WTF,

that's why I'm the and and it still

sounds like a lot of cores, but it's

clearly not the the primary uh

>> just going for just more cores is not

the primary focus.

>> Correct. Yeah.

>> And when Nvidia does it, it it's like

Apple. It's like how how I'm always

industry follows

>> bemoning when Apple does something

horrible and applauding when Apple does

something great. Regardless of whether

I'm going to buy the product, everybody

else is going to do it. When Nvidia does

it, everybody else is going to start

looking at IPC.

Everyone else is going to start looking

at, okay, okay, can we can we boost

clock speeds? Can we make a more

powerful core? Because we got to compete

with that now. So, I'm I'm really

excited. Vera uses LPDDR5X memory with

ECC and full telemetry. NVIDIA claims

roughly 3x the memory bandwidth per

core. So, um, here's some bad news. This

could mean that either we need to go

like cam style memory on the desktop or

we could be looking at soldered memory

on the desktop. I know, right? Um, but

tell me something. If you could get like

a real like like actually for the first

time in many years generational

performance increase on your CPU, would

you consider a motherboard with soldered

memory on it?

>> As of right now, no.

>> Well, as of tomorrow then? Like

>> I still feel like I feel like there

there is a version of tomorrow where the

answer is yes. Um like there there's a

way where I could see that happening. Um

>> CAM would be a more ideal scenario. Cam

is a lot more ideal.

>> It's still a compromise though. I was

looking at So, uh Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. I

Hold on.

I just need to make sure that I'm not

saying something that I'm not supposed

to. Uh, no. Okay. Well, I've been

working on a review of a product that

involves cam memory

anyway, which is why I was looking more

closely at the exact specs of it. And

when I'm comparing it to other products

that don't use cam style memory, it

doesn't it still doesn't run quite as

fast as soldered memory. It just plain

doesn't.

>> I don't actually know what the answer to

that is, but I have I have multiple

ideas and I'm very curious. Um

>> yeah, I don't know. So my reason for

that is what am I using the individual

core performance for right now?

>> Well, what I assume

>> what I assume you want to use it for is

gaming,

>> right? But then I look at the games that

I'm playing and it's like

>> we're a number of years off of this

mattering.

>> I'm on that's so that's where my current

stance is. Why would I give up

>> the the you know

>> the flexibility

>> the flexibility of of memory being the

repility

>> and the repairability of memory being

removable? Easily removable.

>> It is removable either way, but but

easily removable.

>> Sure. Anything's removable if you pull

hard enough.

>> I'm not that guy, right? So like it's

not removable for me.

>> So be careful. [laughter]

Um jeez. So it's like I and and I look

at what I'm I'm doing. Honestly, I've

been playing less and less competitive

multiplayer. It's just a cesspool out

there. Uh that might be part of it to be

honest. Um I I do think there's just a

the ease of access to cheating is

insane. The fact that I have received

YouTube ads for game cheats is just

crazy. Um so it's it's

>> you are you need all the help. I wonder

I wonder if they do target people that

are in like their mid mid30s plus cuz

you know your gaming performance is

starting to decline and if they're like

you know

>> you could just just just take one of

these

>> uncbot 9000

>> just take one of these.

>> Yeah yeah yeah. Um

>> so so hear me out. Here's what here's

where I think we're going to land there

because we know that the next cycle of

consoles is going to be based on like

currentish CPU architectures now because

it's just the way the development cycle

works. So, we're going to get uh I I

think it's I think it's planned to be

Zen 4 or Zen 5. PS6, Zen 4 or 5. What

What's it going to be? Blah blah blah.

Oh, is heavily rumored to use Zen 6.

Okay, so the best case scenario is that

the PlayStation 6 uses Zen 6. Did I say

PS5 before? Sorry. PS5 uses like Zen 2

or something like this. Zen 2, Zen 3, I

can't remember. Uh the point is that

PlayStation 6 apparently is heavily

rumored to use AMD's Zen 6 architecture.

So what that tells us is that we're not

getting you know a a paradigm shift in

per core performance on the next line on

the next family of consoles. What that

tells us is that every game developed

for the next 6 7 years after the

PlayStation 6 launched stop it. uh after

the PlayStation 6 launches is going to

be targeting modest CPU cores.

But the next one, assuming Nvidia is

releasing Vin now, assuming that CPU

companies have a 2 to threeyear

development cycle that it will take them

to catch up, that means more performance

CPU cores could be coming around

PlayStation 7 time

just in time for your early 40s. you

could be looking at, okay,

it may be worth considering that I need

more CPU performance on my desktop. That

that that would be the that would be the

most sort of [laughter]

makes sense big picture timeline that I

could put forward for when it would

actually matter

>> and like really matter.

>> Yeah.

>> Until then, I think you'll see

motherboard options with CAM. I think

you might even see desktop platforms

that that use soldered memory, but they

might not feel necessary for if you're

not trying to squeeze every last frame

out.

Yeah. Um

I don't know.

I don't know where I'll be at in that

many years. I do know like looking at

what's happening in the industry right

now um it is a pretty freaking big nerf

not being able to move your memory

around. Um, I have heard more and more.

There was a there was a panel at open

source. It was building a PC in 2026 and

there was a lot. It was a I when we were

prepping for the panel.

>> Were there veils and and and

handkerchiefs that everyone could get on

their way in?

>> There was a Discord thread uh of the of

the panelists and the host prepping for

the panel. And my first post was like, I

can just like cry in the corner if you

want. [laughter]

like I don't know what you want us to

cover. Um

>> I I think the panel ended up actually

being pretty good. There was some

repetition to it though. But one of the

things that was mentioned was just

moving memory around

>> is like a thing that people are actually

doing. Condensing, you know, you have

you have you had maybe two systems. You

condense the memory into one to get more

capacity into one of them. Maybe you had

one system that when RAM was really

cheap, you're just like, I don't know,

64 gigs sounds pretty neat. I'll just

get that. It's pretty cheap anyways. Now

that maybe turns into two systems that

are at 32 because it's probably fine.

>> I used to um I used to on a semi-regular

basis uh back before we even had like a

digital inventory system.

>> I would I would write down I actually

have a notebook that has pages of me

doing this in it. I would write down all

of our inventory so that I could balance

all of the specs across all of our

various workstations in the company and

make sure that the people who needed

things the most had the best stuff and

that everyone else kind of got the

handme-downs and I was constantly

balancing against the hardware that we

needed to make our videos so that that

would be free. Uh like back when we were

in the Langley house I would do that on

a fairly regular [laughter] basis. Yeah.

And to your point,

how now? I I can't even move like uh

DDR5 uh is the first generation that I

can think of. I actually it there might

have been something before before, but

it's the first generation I can think of

where the registered DIMs have a

completely different notch. So,

literally, you cannot

use them in the same motherboards as as

an unbuffered DIM. Um, on DDR4 you

could, and there were certain platforms

that would allow like ECC and

unbuffered. Um, and then, man, were

there any that did registered and

unbuffered? That I'm not sure. That I'd

have to like go and look up. But, but

there's definitely less flexibility now

even in the socketed stuff than than we

had before.

>> Yeah. So like I that is a very

significant

you know uh damage to the value

proposition of the thing that you're

buying in my opinion is you can't part

it out as easily. Um

you are you are losing there. It feels

kind of like the whole physical media

thing.

You you buy a digital version. Yeah. You

can play it just fine while you have it.

It will probably be okay. As long as

you're using it for the thing you want

to use it for. you're probably good. But

then once that's over, if someone bought

a physical one, they can resell it or do

something else with it. Um,

memory is something that is I mean,

especially when I was kind of first

getting into computers, people would

always talk about how much memory you

had. I remember when the first person I

knew got one gig, it was like, whoa,

that's crazy.

>> A gigabyte.

>> Yeah.

>> Like a billion bytes.

>> Wild. Incredible. I I remember the first

time I I think I've even told you the

story before. The first time I ever saw

one terabyte hard drive was at PAX and

someone stood up on top of a thing and

held it up above their head and was

like, "I bet you've never seen a

terabyte before." And everybody was

like, "Whoa,

[laughter] it's crazy." Um, anyways, I'm

freaking old. This is why I'm bad at

video games. Um [laughter]

uh anyways um but yeah I don't know that

that that would seriously affect the the

calculation being made on the value of

the product and I could definitely see

myself taking a slightly lower

performance CPU if it came with memory

that I could more easily remove. Um, but

I could also see myself in a situation

where there's some form of

>> minus gives you all your computers

anyway, so it'll use whatever's in it.

[laughter]

>> That's kind of fair. Uh,

I was I was explaining that to someone

recently. They asked like how much

something cost and I was like, I don't

know. And they're like, what do you

mean? [laughter]

I was like, what? I don't like I haven't

built I haven't bought the components

for my own personal computer in a very

long time. And they're like, "How what

do you mean? You haven't refreshed in a

while." I was like, "No, [laughter] I

mean I haven't refreshed since high

school." Like you you don't understand.

>> That's when I peaked. [laughter]

>> Well, there Yeah, there was uh I

remember the last time I technically

bought PC components was uh Intel Retail

Extreme.

>> Retail Edge. But yes,

>> Retail Edge. Sure. And they had extreme

editions.

>> Yeah. And that's the one that went in

the mineral oil tank. That's the last

one I bought.

>> Nice.

>> Cuz even before we had our agreement

thing, you had me with different parts,

I think, so I could do like editing

better at home or something.

>> Yeah, cuz it was sad what he was trying

to edit on. [laughter]

>> It was It was out of pity.

>> That system was getting a little old.

>> All right, why don't we jump into

another topic? You want to pick one?

>> Yeah. Where's this? Uh, I want to figure

out more about this. Where did it go? Oh

no, I lost it.

>> He lost it. He's lost it.

>> Oh no.

>> Are we going to address the foot cam at

all or is it pretty

>> kind of It's strange. I think people are

going to see how much I fidget.

[laughter]

Uh, Microsoft introduces Xbox backwards

compatibility program on PC. Four

original Xbox games with more to come.

uh will be available for purchase on PC

via Game Pass. This is one part that

confuses me. Or for free if you already

have a console digital license. So I

guess you log in with the same account

and then you get access to it on the

computer which is actually that's cool.

That makes sense.

>> Okay.

>> The initial offerings are Blinks the

Time Sweeper.

>> Okay.

>> Conquer Live and Reloaded. Heard of that

one. Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge.

And Fusion Frenzy. I love Fusion Frenzy.

That's actually genuinely pretty

exciting. Especially if they man if they

had online multiplayer Fusion Frenzy, I

would pay the I would play the heck out

of that. The The part that confuses me

is they will be available for purchase

on PC via Game Pass. What does that

mean?

>> It means that Wait. Yeah. What does that

mean?

>> What does that mean?

>> So, if you have Game Pass, then you can

buy it.

>> But Game Pass is like a rental.

>> No, no, no. It's a comma, Luke. They'll

be available for purchase on PC,

available via Game Pass, or free if you

already have a console digital license.

Three options.

>> Okay,

>> that makes way more sense.

>> Okay.

>> Okay, cool.

>> So, how much are they? Are they

available now? When do they become

available?

>> I I don't know.

>> I want to see how much it'll cost me to

buy Fusion Frenzy.

>> Okay,

>> so these are all Yeah, these are all

like original Xbox games. Um, some

outlets have said the experience is

mostly good with some minor frame timing

and jutdder issues. And

>> dude, it's $249.

>> Really?

>> It's on sale. 75% off.

>> Okay. So,

>> for the next like 6 days

>> included in Essential Game Pass or you

can buy it for 250.

>> 250. Can I play this multiplayer?

>> Not local.

single player shared split screen. Xbox

One is

>> okay. Well, I could do the Cuz like I'm

thinking on Steam. Yeah,

>> you could just remote play.

>> Is that what uh is that what Xbox Play

Anywhere is?

>> Xbox Play Anywhere.

>> Xbox Play Anywhere is playing your your

Xbox games streamed to something.

>> I will probably buy this.

Fusion Frenzy was a lot of fun and I

only had the the trial disc that came

with some like magazine.

I never even got to play like the whole

game. Um,

>> okay. Well, our discuss that answers our

first discussion question. Which of

these four games are you most likely to

play?

>> Oh, Fusion Frenzy for sure. And I will

like actually probably buy it. I

remember one time I was at Microsoft

hanging out for something. I don't

remember what it was. And they had like

all the media people that were visiting

uh hanging out in this like random room

for a while while they did something.

And they had a bunch of Xboxes set up

and they had Fusion Frenzy in the

machines. And I like that was one of the

games that you could play. And I like

recruited some random media people that

were there to start playing Fusion

Frenzy on one of them and people started

watching and then people naturally

started playing on the other Xbox and

then the whole room and it just people

playing Fusion Frenzy this like ancient

game and people were having a lot of

fun. It Fusion Frenzy is great.

>> Cool. I've ne I've never tried it.

>> It's like uh Xbox's take on like a Mario

Party.

>> Oh, okay. So like lots of mini games.

>> Lots of mini games.

>> Oh, cool.

>> It's been forever since I've played it,

but I remember having a ton of fun. They

have like I mean the the thing on the

box art uh there we go.

>> Yeah, that's not a great sales pitch,

honestly.

>> Nope, it's not. But it's like it's like

that uh that like platform game. I don't

know if they have it here.

>> Oh, where you bump each other off.

>> Yeah, I don't know if one of these is

actually going to show it.

>> I saw right at the beginning there. Is

that not to No, to the right. To the

right. Everything you own in a box to

the Oh, no. That's something else. Okay.

>> Some burgers or something.

>> Yeah, sure. I mean, hamburgers. Again, I

I haven't played the actual

>> 45 mini games.

>> So, this is a race thing. Yeah, 45 mini

games. Yeah, sounds good. Whatever. It

was It was like uh if I remember

correctly, most people played it through

the the demo disc,

>> right?

>> Um

>> maybe that was their mistake,

>> making the game demo too good.

>> Yeah, it was actually like there there

was a few different mini game. There was

enough mini games on it that you and

your friends could like play Fusion

Frenzy and then be done with it and it

would be fine. Um, like it was it was a

little bit too much.

>> Way to go, guys. Um, our other

discussion question is, do you think

Xbox has a vision for the future? I feel

like we go back and forth on this every

freaking week because it's like there

will be some news will come out and

you'll go like, okay, we're so back. And

then some other news will come out and

we'll be like, they're doomed. Uh,

clearly they're just going to sell it or

spin it off. And then the next week it's

like, wait, they're actually doing

really cool stuff.

Can you handle this degree of whiplash,

Luke?

>> I [laughter] mean, that's life right

now. Um, I think as much like obviously

layoffs are bad. I think that can be

universally just been like, okay,

layoffs are bad. People losing jobs are

bad. 14 layers of management also

unacceptable,

>> right?

>> So, like

they might also be on a really brutal

timer,

>> right? They might not have a lot of

runway to like figure this out. When

you're doing layoffs at the scale that

they're doing, you're going to end up

like this isn't even like, oh, big

brain. This is just very obvious. You're

going to end up taking people out that

shouldn't have been removed.

>> You're you're going to have mistakes

with a layoff of that is very sad.

Really good people trying to do really

good things are going to lose their jobs

over this. That's a a a you know that's

a 14 layers of management failure. Um

which sucks, but

it feels like something that really

needed to happen. Halo Infinite costing

$800 million to make is just not okay.

It's not a good enough game for that

output. Um they have to figure something

out. They have these old ancient

legendary studios outputting just like I

don't know in Bethesda's case

practically nothing. Like something's

got to give. When uh oh man, I can

barely even remember his name.

Starfield. When Starfield came out, the

conversation was largely around like

this game failed largely because of

management failure. Like this stuff

needed to get addressed. There was

conversations about like apparently Todd

wasn't even happy about it because like

it was structured where every single

decision had to go through Todd and Todd

was basically like this is nuts. Like I

this isn't how Morowind was made. This

isn't how Oblivion was made. A lot of

writers and creatives in the in the

creation of the game had more autonomy

which is one of the reasons why those

games can feel kind of disconnected

sometimes. You can be in an area doing

something and it has like a certain kind

of tone and feel

>> and then you go on another quest

>> and it's like very different.

>> It's like this is like you it went from

like oh spooky scary to like this is

kind of funny and whimsical.

>> Yeah.

>> Like I remember I I never was able to

put my finger on it but I remember that

from Oblivion.

>> Yeah. Oh yeah.

>> Where the Yeah. Big time in Oblivion. I

I never ever put my finger on exactly

what I was noticing or even and because

I didn't do that, I never thought about

thinking about why

>> old Elder Scrolls games

>> so much sense.

>> The the various developers around the

company, I believe even Todd would talk

about like after the game came out, they

would play it and discover things,

>> right?

>> Like it was a lot of very strong

contributors. And that's one of the

reasons why they're able to make them so

fast. The gap between Mororrow and

Oblivion is really short. The gap

between Oblivion and Skyrim isn't even

really that long. And then now we're

looking at like just enormous gaps where

like I don't know, someone will have not

been alive when Skyrim came out and be

old enough to enjoy the next game.

>> Elder Scrolls Arena.

>> Mhm.

>> March 25th, 94.

Daggerfall, September 20th, 96.

Mororrowind. That was a that was a

pretty big gap. Six years.

>> Morowind was like the biggest map in a

video game ever when it released.

>> May 1st, 2002.

>> Yeah.

>> Oblivion. March 20th, 2006.

Only four years. Then

>> 2011

>> to Skyrim,

>> November 11th,

>> 2011.

>> And then crickets.

>> Freaking crickets, dude. It's 2026, bro.

It's been 15 years. Okay. Okay. Put to

put that in context. To put that in

context, from the Elder Scrolls Arena to

The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim was

17 years. Since The Elder Scrolls 5

Skyrim, it has been

>> It's almost been the entire duration of

the entire Elder Scrolls series since we

got another Elder Scrolls.

>> Like, that doesn't work. I don't like so

something has to break. So some breakage

there as painful it is is as brutal as

it is for the people losing their jobs

as especially brutal as it is for the

people that are really doing great work

and are also losing their jobs

>> and as brutal as it is for the people

staying behind

>> 100%. the uh level of demoralization has

to be insane and you have to try to

figure out how to keep going on or else

your job isn't going to continue to

exist and there's a lot of threat

looming because there's another layoff

coming soon and you don't know that

there won't be more because there

something is going to have to change for

there to not be more. Uh but the

management structures there and I'm sure

tons of other things are a problem. 14

layers of management doesn't work when

you're trying to do a creative process

especially. Oh my god. way to get out

the most bland vanilla Starfield crap

ever. Uh, that's how it's gonna work.

But, but yeah, it's it's it's

interesting. You watch you watch like I

don't know how can you have a lot of the

generally quite serious tones of a lot

of the Elder Scrolls games and then also

have Shiogarth in the world throwing

cheese wheels at you for fun. Like it's

it's

>> it's because it's a creative super.

>> Someone had lunch with Phil Schaefer or

something like like that's the only

possible explanation. Yeah. And he was

like, you know, would be funny,

[laughter]

>> let's make a cheese dimension. Uh, yeah.

It's there like it's I I remember in

Skyrim I had I had no idea this was

coming. Um I I think it was in

Winterfell, you you do like a drinking

competition with some dude and then you

wake up and like everything is just

mess. you like black out and then you

wake up and everything's just messed up

and it turns out the drinking

competition was with Shiiorath and you

have to uncover like what you did while

you were blacked out and it's just like

what just happened? It it went from like

Skyrim I'm a Dragon Lord to like hang

over the movie um in the middle of the G

but it was like actually really fun and

engaging and the story of it was really

good. Um and that was so great and now

it's

you know uh what is the hue of this pot?

I don't know. Better talk to Todd. Um,

and that that doesn't work and makes it

take 17 trillion years to make another

game. So, yeah, something has to change

at Xbox. It sounds like there's a lot of

change. Change is really really chaotic.

I don't think we are even sort of close

>> to the end of the painful chaotic

change. And I hope they find a way out

of it because there's a lot of really

cool IPs there and a lot of really cool

people working there. I'm sure.

>> You know what's really funny is we've

had some painful chaotic change here

lately

>> and I actually going around the world

right now.

>> I I actually like gave an impromptu kind

of talk to uh the writing team like an

hour ago where I was basically just like

you I think actually said it better than

I did. So I kind of wish that I had said

it better. I don't even know what this

is, but

>> it was basically just like um [snorts]

you know, you know, am I stressed? Yes.

>> Yeah, super stressed. Um but there's a

difference. This is a this is a stress

that is not a it's not an external

stress. It's a like it's kind of an it's

kind of a like like it's time to lock in

and there's work to be done and it can

be really exciting and it's it's it's

stress about it's stress about like a

new opportunity because um you know I

think I think internally we have a lot

of things that we do really well and I

think we have a lot of stuff that hasn't

been working as well and and and I think

that some of the upheaval that we've had

is going to force force us

>> to re-evaluate and do things

differently. I've seen a growing

sentiment over the last little while

that the content is starting to feel

more classic LTT. And it's not because

there's different people working on it.

In a lot of cases, it's some of our it's

some of our oldest timers that are

working on a lot of that content, but

the processes are changing and we're

getting

out of necessity slash out of because

we're bored of being bored, we're

getting scrappier again. Um, actually

had a ton of fun today. Like uh Elijah

Elijah was here before the show and he's

like exhausted because we shot all day,

but we shot two LTs today that were both

just

>> just fun.

>> Amazing.

>> You know, I I

>> it's actually so important and I'm very

happy to hear that.

>> Yeah. Like uh one of them one of them

doesn't sound fun. Uh Elijah and I were

having a conversation and realized uh

separate from the the video se that both

of us needed a printer right now.

>> Our reasons for needing a printer were

completely different. So he's got a lot

more like business administration that

he's got to do because of his like

streaming side hustle

>> and he needs a printer. And my kids are

getting to like high school age and they

need to surprisingly they still need to

hand things in. Whether it's like

>> putting things on a poster board or

whether it's like handing in an

assignment, they actually still need to

hand stuff in on paper. Um more often

than I expected and so we kind of went,

"Is Is that a video? [laughter]

>> Is us going shopping for a printer?

>> Is honestly, yeah. is us going printer

shopping a video

>> and uh and and we made the decision and

it turns out that was easy. Um yeah.

Yeah, it's a video. And so today, Elijah

and I having done zero research, neither

of us having bought a printer. So to

give you context, Elijah hadn't bought a

printer ever. And my current most

up-to-date printer that I bought is made

by Samsung.

>> They haven't made printers in a in a

minute, I think.

>> So uh how long do you think a minute is?

Don't look at the chat. Don't look at

the chat. They're not going to help you.

>> I don't know. I So I when I worked at

Geek Squad, they sold Samsung printers.

So they definitely made them as of when

would that have been? 2011, I think. So

I'm going to guess that they stopped in

2015.

>> You're actually super close. HP

announced the acquisition of Samsung's

printer business in 2016. Poo. That was

That was pretty good, actually.

>> So, it's been almost 10 years since

Samsung printers have even been a thing.

>> And you definitely bought yours notably

before they stopped being

>> Oh, yeah, brother.

>> I'm pretty sure yours was old by that

time.

>> Uh, it wasn't new.

>> So,

you know. [laughter]

>> Yeah.

>> So, we we basically went in like, "Oh,

yeah. We'll uh you know, how about the

eco tank? Is is that a is that a good

thing?

And and it's it's it's really

it's really interesting getting

>> Oh man, that's actually got to be so

much fun. Watching Lionus and Elijah go

into a store and just try to figure out

what the heck all the terms are on the

label for a tech product actually sounds

hilarious.

>> And the most frustrating part is how

many terms were not on the label. Like

there there's a part in the video where

I'm like, see see this is why

everybody's turning to AI because

instead of having standardized labels

that all have the same specs so that I

can easily compare them, they all have

the different things on them. One of

them says how many pages per minute and

the next one over says whether it has a

fax function or not, but does this one

have a fax function? How many pages a

minute does that one do? I don't know.

That wasn't easy.

Okay, I I'll ask the AI and Oh, then now

I have to go and cross check every

>> verify everything it says.

>> Bloody stupid thing it says because I

can't trust it at all.

>> Especially the Google one. Well,

especially the uh search integrated

ones. They're all loadier.

>> It's It's very frustrating. And uh I

actually also it was another shopping

video which was like they were both in

the same place. So we shot Linus buys on

a phone

>> as well and that was frustrating for a

completely different reason. How many

options do you think there were for

buying a printer

>> these days?

Like eight.

>> Oh, dude. I kid you not. Like 50.

>> Whoa.

>> Tons.

>> You're in.

>> We're in stables.

>> Ah, okay.

>> Tons. Okay. We got your

>> You did say the whole easy button thing.

All right. Yeah. Yeah.

>> We got your Epson. We got your HP. We

got We Hey, come on up here. We got your

brother. We got your inkjet.

Got your toner. Uh, deco tank. They got

They got so many options.

Multi-function.

[laughter]

>> They got everything, man.

>> Business grade, consumer grade. Do you

want the free?

>> So, okay. I didn't I was basically only

thinking like consumer grade, if that

helps at all.

>> They got everything.

>> They probably still had way more than

eight.

>> They They got everything. Okay. Okay.

How many options do you think Ivonne had

for phones?

>> I feel I don't shop for things. No.

Okay. Uh, is she excluding any?

>> She is not buying an iPhone again.

>> Okay. So, nothing on the iPhone side of

things.

>> We got to look probably a couple

generations.

>> Uh,

15.

>> You're not even close. But the other way

at the store, what

>> there was, and I kid you not, there was

the S25 FE.

>> Okay,

>> there S26, 26 Plus, 26 Ultra. They had

the Flip and both of the new folds, so

we're up to seven. And then they had

like the Pixel 10, 10, and 10 Pro.

>> They had the Flip and the two folds.

>> Well, they were just installing them

today,

>> but not like a bajillion other things,

>> dude. There was like

>> that seems wild. was an absolute desert

of choice.

>> They Okay. Okay. You know what? You're

actually really close. No, I forgot.

There were two Motoras as well. There

was like two Motorola, so it was like

there was like 12 phones.

>> So, actually, you're you're close, but I

was just

>> Was that Staples again?

>> No, that was Best Buy. So, like where's

the you know, and I know LG doesn't make

them anymore, right? But like where's

the LG? Where's the Sony? Where's the

Asus ROG? And and to be clear, I know

those also don't exist, but like where's

the Xiaomi and real media?

>> That's kind of your point, isn't it?

They're all kind of falling off.

>> Everything's gone.

>> OnePlus just left North American

markets.

>> No OPPO, no Vivo.

>> Is I mean, you can

>> Are they Japan exclusive now?

>> I think you can get like international

ones shipped to you, but I don't think

they're in retail stores in North

America.

>> Yeah,

>> Dan probably knows.

>> Just this one that I have is the what,

the six or something like that. It was

available in America. There's an

American variant. The previous

generation did not have a North American

variant.

>> Do you have that cool new one?

>> Uh, not the newest one. No, I just I

just upgraded this. I'm I'm good with

this one.

>> Um, but I still buy the Chinese variants

cuz they have unlocked bootloadader.

They're locked in America.

>> The Xperia phones right now are like my

favorite phones on paper. If you don't

include the price as a line of item and

then you include the price as a line

item and it's like never mind. I got to

go and prepare your the other one for

you.

>> It's It's fine.

>> I am so dumb.

>> Um anyways, anyway, I was just like I

was I was blown away. Your options are

pretty much Pixel, iPhone, Samsung, or

go yourself.

>> And the difference between those these

days, I think, is also less than like

ever before.

>> So boring. Oh, Pinetics. Okay, Pinetics

in the chat. It's like, I miss when HTC

made good phones, dude. I found an HTC1

mini in like my seat cushions the other

day.

>> Those were nice. And I was like, man,

>> those felt good. Those felt really good.

>> Like that. Damn, that's nice. You know,

like,

>> where are the freaking options, man?

>> Yeah.

>> So, yeah, it was really disappointing.

>> Oh, there there was some phones from

like best phone

>> that era plus or minus like 3 years that

were just incredible.

>> I was a big Droid Turbo guy. I freaking

loved the Droid Turbo with the ballistic

nylon backing.

>> Yeah. Actually, you know what?

>> Yeah.

>> Um, they didn't have it at Best Buy

today, so it wasn't an option for Yvon's

purchase, but Motorola has a really nice

fold. Now,

>> the Razor, check out the backing

material.

>> I was looking at the backing material

before I even felt it. It looks really

sharp. I don't know if you guys

>> Which one? That one.

>> Yeah, it's not that close.

>> I don't think they're going to be able

to really see.

>> Yeah, they're not going to be able to

see.

>> Uh, really nice pattern. It feels great

in the hand actually.

>> So, I'm probably not going to daily that

just because the um I just got my hands

on this. And then like immediately the

uh the ZFold 8 arrived and I am very

curious to see if I can get used to the

form factor. I actually shot the short

circuit unboxing of it like right before

I came down here. Yeah.

>> Of just like a normal foot. Oh, it's not

normal.

I see.

>> [laughter]

>> Yes.

>> It's like super wide and kind of short.

>> What did you call me?

>> Right after I said it.

>> The did you just say to me?

>> I I said it and then just stared at the

phone and was like, "We're [laughter]

going to just move on."

Oh my Oh yeah, that's kind of weird.

>> One of these days he will become the

experienced on camera personality that

he was born to be. And he will not hold

the camera out of sight or the phone out

of sight.

>> Let Let me Let me look Let me look at

this real quick. [laughter]

>> It's uh

>> I'm dying.

>> I was not born to be this. We shaped me

into this weird amoeba. Um

it's it's it's it's a strange form

factor. Okay, here's my 8 Pro for

example.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> It's very short. It's like

>> very lukew.

[laughter]

But then if I open it up,

>> it's enormous.

>> Yeah. Flip. Flip it 90°.

No. No. Oh god. No. The other

>> Don't even

I'll I'll wait. I can wait.

What? That's Stop.

>> Clockwise. [clears throat]

There you go. That's right.

>> Good enough. There you go. Now you can

see the height difference. Okay. Are you

actually not going to hold it like that?

>> There you go.

>> There. [laughter]

>> Crying out loud like that.

>> I thought I had already shown that.

Sorry.

>> No.

>> So, it's got it's like the

>> So, I guess Yeah, you could turn it to

the side.

>> So, I was interesting.

>> When I was shooting the short circuit, I

was actually like

I was doing the thing where I list all

the positives about it

so that I can ultimately go, "Yeah, but

like come on.

And then I went

>> and I held it like this

>> and I went, "Holy crap, they might be on

to something."

It's like

like that is that's big, you know, and

it's like and it's light. It's only 201

g. It's very like

>> battery life

>> holdable. I think it has a Don't quote

me on this. It's in the short circuit.

46

or 4,800 mAh. Um,

>> that's a Samsung.

>> I've gotten shockingly good battery life

out of the Fold 7. I've been extremely

happy with it.

>> Are they doing battery in each

whatever you call it? I don't know

section.

>> Actually, not sure. Haven't done a tear

down. Wouldn't surprise me if they did,

>> but I'm not sure.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Interesting. All All yours for the low

low price of $2500

for the one TB model.

>> No longer interesting.

>> Yeah, I didn't think so. $1,900 for the

I think it's a Is it the 256 or one? I

think it's a 256.

>> My old my old 8 Pro is still chooching.

I uh I am planning on probably doing a

battery replacement because the battery

on it at this point is brutal. It's uh

>> Yeah, that's the 256 for

>> Yeah.

>> 1900. Anyone

want to pick a topic?

How did we end up on this after Xbox

backward compatibility? This show is

can't even

>> Sometimes we do be doing stuff uh who

isn't going to be doing stuff is under

15s in France are not going to be social

mediaing unless they find a very obvious

way around the law. Uh French lawmakers

approved a bill on Tuesday banning

social media access for children under

15. The measure must still pass the

Constitutional Council before it can

take effect. What's the right age for

this kind of outright ban?

>> That was pretty much all I had to say

about it. I mean, I guess we could do

the discussion topic.

>> Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think

we've kind of talked this to death a

little bit, but we can talk about the

right age, I guess.

>> I have no idea.

>> Helpful.

>> Yeah. I'm trying to think like, you

know, what would you know like what was

my maturity level then? And but the

world was so different.

>> Very very very different.

>> Like if you had told me at 15 or if you

told me at 14 that I'm not allowed to

have my MSN Messenger to talk to my

friends, I'd been like you're crazy.

>> Yeah.

>> Like of of course I should. And looking

back at it, I don't I don't think that

was a problem. But the access to it

>> access to it was very different.

>> Way more limited.

>> Had to be on your desktop.

>> And probably at that time you had a

single shared computer for the entire

household.

>> Yeah.

>> So it was Yeah. Yeah, it was a it was a

it was a different time. Um,

yeah, I could see I don't know. Crystal

says under 13. I could I could see that.

I I could see 13 as a as a threshold.

With that said, like 13year-olds are no

offense 13-year-olds, but like they're

not they're not mentally mature yet,

like at all. Um,

>> yeah.

And social media

there I guess for me social media tends

to assume that everyone is an adult.

>> There's two different conversations

here, right? I think there's one

conversation around what should be the

age limit of social media and then I

think there's almost a separate

conversation about what should be the

age limit of the like hypertuned hyper

addictive hook you forever like monster

that social media morphed into because I

don't think there's any reason that a

13-year-old couldn't have been on say

what Facebook was in the early days. I

would potentially even argue Discord

now.

>> Yeah, Discord is

>> somewhat monitored. Discord now I think

is more similar to old social media

platforms

>> in that you are the the the Discord

server with your buddies,

>> it's kind of like having an MSN

messenger from back in the day.

>> Yeah. And so and so I I don't see a

problem with that. But you know when you

talk about like like if one of my kids

asked me, "Hey, can I install

Instagram?" I'd be like, "No."

>> Or or Twitter X, whatever.

>> Yeah, that's a hard no.

>> Tik Tok

>> hard no.

>> Yeah, those like infinite scrolling

freaking billions of dollars spent in

mind control type things is is is a

different threshold. And and it it like

feels weird being like, "Yeah, Discord's

the good one." I think there are

obviously, as we saw when when Discord

did some not cool things recently, there

are other similar alternatives. The line

for me and the reason why I'm saying

Discord is

yeah, it can be used poorly. You can end

up on really bad communities on Discord.

There's uh there was some stuff in the

news recently of some like really

terrible things going through Discord.

That's going to be true for everything.

Um but I think in general when when used

fairly appropriately, it'll be direct

messaging with your friends, very

similar to MSN. Yep. and a a potential

like server thing that you could just

have with your friends from school that

should theoretically do a decent job of

of uh having some amount of wall in

between just the whole open internet and

thing. Our rule with our kids is, hey,

you're a minor and the deal is if you're

allowed to use a platform that enables

you to communicate broadly with the

world, we're allowed to look at it and

we'll tell you, we're going to come look

at it and we'll do it together. We're

not going to snoop on you. There will be

no cloak and daggering in this

relationship.

>> That's nice. That's cool.

>> But that's the deal.

>> Yeah. Um,

>> and some people might look at that and

go helicopter parenting. Um,

>> knock on wood, my kids all seem like

they're turning out really good so far.

So, no regrets.

>> And there's

>> I'll stay in my little helicopter.

>> You know, just like every single thing,

if the if the kids are I like that.

That's amazing. Uh,

>> not even what a helicopter sounds like.

>> Nope. That's fantastic. uh riding in the

Linus copter.

>> If they really want to, if they're

really motivated enough, they could just

memorize the server ID and just leave it

every time.

>> Like there there is

if the kids really want to y

>> are super motivated, there will be a way

around it. That's how I feel like with

all of these laws, too. It's like, yeah,

okay, until I go on to like some

realistic looking video game and make a

character and then do some AI altering

to the character and make it look like I

create a persona. Um, and then create

that digital persona online and now I'm

an adult who's able to get onto these

social media platforms. Like there are

ways around it, but I think even putting

up a little bit of a barrier to try to

dissuade and effectively communicate to

parents like, "Hey, this is dangerous

for your kids genuinely." U I think can

be a good thing.

>> Glow says, "As someone that was raised

by the internet with no parental

guidelines, thank you for watching out

for them."

[laughter]

All right.

>> [sighs]

>> Okay. Um, maybe I'll pick the next one

here.

>> Sure.

>> Should we get all the Xbox stuff out of

the way? Oh, you know what? No, I'm

going to I'm going to go with this one.

Um, the tariff saga continues. And I'm

not talking about the most recent

retaliatory tariffs for wildfire smoke,

which is wild. Uh, no. I'm talking about

Nintendo filing a motion to dismiss the

class action from gamers who say that

Nintendo would be double dipping by

keeping its tariff refund after they

passed tariff costs on to customers.

Nintendo's argument in its lawyer's

words is that buyers, this is a quote,

received exactly what they bargained and

paid for when they bought this price

hiked hardware. And this is another

quote, "Plaintiffs are not entitled to a

rebate simply because of intervening

legal developments related to tariffs."

In other words, Nintendo's version of

events says, "The sticker said $499

for one Switch 2, please. You paid $499.

We gave you a Switch 2. The deal is now

done."

The reason this is coming up is that

Nintendo raised prices actually on both

the original Switch and Switch 2

accessories citing tariffs. Uh the

Supreme Court struck those tariffs down

in February. Nintendo sued the

government for its own refund in March

and then gamers filed the class action

in April. Nintendo's filing argues that

it has no legal duty to retroactively

adjust prices on completed sales, saying

that's not how commercial transactions

work.

Game Files Steven Tatilo was first to

report the motion. Our discussion

question is Nintendo blamed tariffs for

price increases. Then they sued to get

their tariff money back while telling

customers a deal is a deal. Legally they

might be right. So why do some people

feel that they are so wrong? And I I

this is one of those ones I think I both

sides to this the last time we talked

about it. And I'll let you talk first

because spoiler alert I'm going to both

sides it again. So get ready.

>> Yeah. I mean there are other costs

involved as we talked about this last

time. Um

>> it's not

like I mean there's even legal fees with

them trying to sue the government to get

their tariff money back. Like there's

there are other costs involved. It

doesn't just magically evaporate like

that. Uh,

>> the tariffs are also going away. The

tariff cost is being taken or refunded

to Nintendo because the tariffs were

found to be illegal. There's nothing

illegal about Nintendo putting a $4.99

price tag on something and you paying

it. That's that's legal. Um,

>> it's not necessarily nice.

>> That sucks.

>> Yeah. [snorts]

>> Yeah. No one's saying this doesn't suck.

It's just it's not illegal. They're I

think the people suing Nintendo are

going to lose. Um

>> I mean, yes.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes, they will.

>> Yeah.

>> But what about the moral question?

Morally speaking,

>> do you think they're right? Should

Nintendo pass the tariff refund back

along?

>> I think part of it would be nice. Um, I

think if if they could somehow figure

out what a reasonable portion is because

again there's

>> turning L's into W's.

Sorry, I I'll I'm going to let you

finish, but I have a I have an idea that

I will pitch to Nintendo free of charge

in a moment.

>> Okay, cool. Um, is like obviously the

legal fees involved with this cost

something. um pivoting the whole

company, the amount of wasted time that

they could have been doing, other cool

things, trying to figure out what is an

appropriate rate that we can set it at

with these literally constantly changing

tariffs. What are what are these counter

measures we can do to move manufacturing

or do other things to dodge these

tariffs? All of that has actually very

substantial cost. So, if you work that

out and then figure out how much is

remaining in the increased pot, then you

could

>> Okay, here's my pitch. Here's my pitch

to Nintendo free of charge. Okay. as a

as an act of as an act of goodwill, you

guys take your tariff refund, which is

going to be all done out in public,

right? So, everyone's going to know how

much tariff refund you get, and you

basically go, "Okay, here's the here's

here's the deal. everyone who bought a

Switch 2 or a a Everyone who bought a

Switch 2 so far and everyone who bought

a Switch One since, you know, some date

uh gets $5 off a game over some amount

in the Nintendo eShop. At the end of the

day, it actually costs you nothing

because you are incentivizing a

purchase. So, you you will make money on

the transaction. You could think of it

as a marketing expense and it's still an

act of goodwill. Realistically, you

know, in terms of what class action

settlements ultimately end up being,

still giving something back to the

entire Nintendo Switch customer base and

Nintendo community. It's a way to it's a

way to kind of be a good guy and and

spend the money that that you got after

the fact, but on something that

ultimately benefits you and your

customers. We take a big L, we turn it

into a W, everybody wins.

>> You're welcome.

>> Yeah. I was I was also potentially

thinking some like uh Nintendo online

time or something like that.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Something like that could be cool.

>> Yeah. Some some kind of some way to to

turn this this crappy situation

>> doing something for the customers makes

sense. A a full refund of the entire

difference of the cost doesn't because

Nintendo still incurred a lot of cost

trying to deal with this situation. Um

but but yeah, there's something some

form of uh making the lives better of

the people who bought it at the inflated

price would be really cool. I mean, I

don't even know if it has to be

[sighs]

because, okay, because if you make it

the people who specifically bought at

the inflated cost, then then that's

basically that's setting a really

dangerous precedent for Nintendo because

now all of a sudden you are opening the

door to the conversation of like, you

know, if there's ever like like if if

Nintendo gets a rebate from their their

battery OEM, like

is everybody going to get Is everybody

who bought a switch going to get a

refund? Like, come on.

>> Ben, it comes back down to what you were

kind of saying, though. The tariffs were

illegal tariffs. Um, and they said that

they raised the price specifically for

that. So, did they raise the price

because of an illegal activity from

their battery manufacturer that they

then got refunded for?

>> We'd never know.

>> That's true.

>> Maybe.

>> We would never know that, right? So, so

they're setting like a really weird

precedent if they go and alter the deal

after the fact. Whereas if they just

say, "Hey, here's a windfall. We love

our Switch community so very huggy muggy

much. Here's something." Then I think

that diffuses

a a lot of the anger and maybe even goes

more broadly than just the people who,

you know, paid more than they would have

liked for for a game console.

>> Yeah, I think that's cool.

>> I I And look, I'm not saying, you know,

$5 logistical absolute freaking

nightmare, just to be clear.

>> Which one? Gift cards.

>> Refunding.

>> Oh, that Yeah,

>> that's insane.

>> Yeah. Whereas like an like like running

a promo basically saying, "Yeah, for the

next week, you know,

>> I I I bought my Switch from Nintend from

uh Willow. Let's say I bought it during

the tariff increase."

>> You think Nintendo's going to

specifically talk with Willow to get in

contact with me to give me money back?

Like how any of this happens? I I don't

even know.

>> Um

>> there's probably a simpler way. They

could set up some site and you can try

to like submit a receipt or something

and then they have to do like OCR stuff

on figuring out if the receipt is

legitimate and

>> ain't any of that happening.

>> Yeah, probably not. So, I I I I like the

idea of of the the something. I think

that's pretty cool.

>> Um

>> ehop gift card, free Nintendo online,

something like that would be pretty

sweet.

>> All right, speaking of online shops,

>> don't they do this all the time with

rebates? No, cuz the ones you're

thinking of is a rebate that you get on

the purchase of the product. So you

would get some form of information that

you then submit in order to get a rebate

back. This is retroactive.

>> Yeah.

>> So it it would not

>> So we weren't planning ahead for it this

time.

>> Yes. Which is actually a huge problem in

this case.

>> They're finally here. The last socks

you'll ever want to buy, the LTT forever

socks. Oh, dang it. It moved right as I

tried to click. [laughter] available in

well sort of available some of the um

some of the colors are already out man

we one of these days we're going to nail

our forecasting but it is not this day

uh the point is on the is this the US

site yeah on the US site we still have

one color in one size and I think the

global site still has uh yes the global

site actually still has uh pretty decent

socks uh stock socks stock so sock

>> they're pretty decent so

>> socks

stock. The Forever Sock is finally

freaking here after 6 years. Uh we have

dropped our much anticipated Forever

sock. We obsessed over everything from

the premium marino wool blend to the

copper infused odor control to the

reinforced heel and toe construction.

The result, a longlasting sock that I

think is the last socks you'll want to

wear. And yes, we are even backing them

with our limited lifetime warranty. So

my notes here say, "Go make your feet

happy at lmg.gg/forever

sock." And then it says, "Note, high

chance US site will be sold out by 4."

Oh, okay. Well, that was a while ago.

Uh, cool. But the global site global

site still has stock and

>> USite still has smalls. I think

>> our forever sock is a great opportunity

for you guys to send in a checkout

message. We on the WAN show believe that

if you're going to throw money at your

screen at live streamers that you should

get something great in return for that

money. So we don't do uh Twitch bits. We

don't do super chats. What we do is coms

a checkout message. All you got to do to

send one is while we're streaming, head

over to ltstore.com,

add something to your cart, and you will

see in the checkout one of these. You

click this button and you can type a

message. You can change the color. You

can decide whether to display your name

or not display your name. And then all

you got to do is go to the checkout and

your message will go to producer Dan.

There he is. Who will, I don't know, pop

it up here or he'll reply to it or he

might curate it for me and Luke to

respond to. So, producer Dan, do you

want to show the folks what that might

look like when you curate a message?

>> Yeah, I've got a bunch here. The first

one here is actually about the socks, so

that works great.

>> That makes sense.

>> Hope you're swell. DLL, can you explain

how you choose SKUs for your first items

uh for your items? Why three colorways

and not two styles for socks? It feels

like variety should beat out colors to

my novice noggin.

That is a great great question.

We do our best. We actually we we

actually like agonize over this kind of

thing.

>> You're you're

>> Yeah. Go ahead.

>> Just genuinely trying to predict the

future.

>> Yeah.

>> And in a lot of ways because you're

trying to predict the future of what

colors people want. You're trying to

predict the future of what sizes people

want and you're trying to predict the

future of that in different geographical

locations cuz now we have two stores,

>> what styles they want to. Uh so we we

were going to launch with a half crew

and then we ultimately made the decision

to launch with a full crew because we

kind of figured okay well the trend

right now is that um you know kind of

like how how hemlines rise and fall with

with trends. Sock heights rise and fall

with trends. Ankle socks are out and

longer socks are trending back. So we

wanted to get out ahead of that. This is

where I'm This is probably the thing I

am most unk about. I I can't do it.

>> Which?

>> The tall socks.

>> Oh, you can't do it.

>> Drives me crazy.

>> You're an ankle sock guy?

>> Oh, yeah. But literally always

>> Oh, that's crazy.

>> Yeah. I have never once liked like even

when I'm trying to go like as warm as

possible in a snow boot.

>> You'll wear an ankle sock in a snowboard

boot.

>> I believe I have done so.

>> That's insane. Okay, so we can safely

ignore him. Yeah.

>> Um, [laughter]

you know what's funny is 5 years ago I

was the UNK guy because ankle socks were

in and I was wearing crew

>> tall socks.

>> Yeah. So, uh, that was another thing

that that shifted us towards the full

crew for the launch. Um, and so, so,

right, so in response, why not two

styles instead of three colors? So for

one thing, two styles in two colors

would have been four lines, which would

have been 33% more. So four doesn't

sound like a lot more than three, except

that four is 33% more. And already with

the three, we have three sizes times

three colors. So that's 9* two

locations. So that is 18 discrete

bins

somewhere in order to have a sock. If we

had gone with two colors in two styles,

that would have been what did I just

what number did I just say? 18.

>> So, it would have been 33% more. So, it

would have been another six. It would

have been 24.

>> It's insane.

>> Really, really fast. How many SKs do you

guys have? It's thousands. I

>> I don't know.

>> Yeah, I know it's thousand. It's

thousands.

>> It's thousands. I know it's thousands. I

literally don't know exactly how many it

is.

>> Yeah, I can check if you'd rather not

know.

>> Doesn't matter. You do not want to know.

>> Yeah, rather not know. Uh Ben Bob says,

"Why not excel size?" because we didn't

we had to start somewhere. This was our

first fora into socks. We were pretty

bullish on this. Uh clearly we were not

bullish enough. We did not order enough.

Um but we will we will order more and uh

when we do so you can expect that we are

going to be looking at uh over the next

little while. Hey, do we do a half crew?

Do we do an ankle? Do we do expanded

sizing? Because to say that the launch

has been successful would be uh an

understatement. One of the things that

we struggle with though, and I'm just

going to I'm just going to be real with

you guys right now, is maintaining

momentum on our products. We will have

these like amazing product launches and

we'll sell, you know, a few socks

>> in a day and then a couple months later

the the buzz is kind of like died down

and we really struggle. We're doing

better. We're at like to be clear, we're

doing better at it and we're always

improving, but we kind of struggle with

the ongoing marketing of our products.

>> There is

Yeah.

>> Yeah. Uh

>> and

>> I'll I'll I'll go I do think sometimes

it's we make such a varied set of things

>> Oh, we do.

>> that it can be

>> minus lead development. It's not it's

actually they're getting better about

that, too. the fashion team is really

putting a lot of pressure on me to have

a cohesive,

you know, product road map. Uh, rather

than just like like, okay, okay, I was

in the middle of the meeting where

they're literally going through the fall

winter 27 plan with me. Like to give you

some idea how far out ahead they are on

this stuff because they're like

organized real like organized people.

Um, and and I'm like, "Okay, wait, wait,

wait, hold on. I just had a I just had a

brainstorm. Okay. I uh can we do a

t-shirt that just has like a pie symbol

and then like a picture of a rat because

I think our audience would just freaking

love that. And they're like, "Yeah,

well, yeah, we'll put it in the pile

just so you got you got to have a

balance of both. You got to have just

like the creative dragon energy and then

you've also got to have the like the

structure." Um and so so what you're

seeing here is creative dragon energy.

Hey, we need to make this thing and like

here's all the like cool stuff it should

have and this is it's going to be

awesome. And then it's like okay, we

need to start somewhere. So here's how

we pair down the offerings to something

reasonable and and here's how we kind of

like go to market and then expand it.

But then where Luke is going with this

is like, okay, as we take that slow and

steady approach in the background, how

exactly is it that you can tell what

kind of store this is?

>> Well, okay, here's my question.

>> Yeah,

>> without the banner,

>> how did I not wear that shirt for the

video anyway? Go ahead. without this

banner. So, let's pretend this banner is

not in rotation. Let's go forward a few

weeks, a couple months, whatever.

>> Where are the socks?

>> They are under apparel.

>> Nope.

>> Really?

>> Okay. Well, um

Okay, I'll I'll ask for that to be

moved.

>> We [snorts] make so many different

things that sometimes the categorization

of stuff gets kind of weird. Um, like if

I go under tools and I click on

screwdrivers.

Um,

oh, it has improved.

Someone listened to me. Thank you very

much. Uh, but it's it's sometimes

finding stuff on the store is like kind

of hard. And part of that is cuz we just

make so much stuff. I don't know that

many stores other than like a freaking I

don't know,

Target.

that sells like some of the the variety

of different things that we have. We

have apparel, both tops, bottoms,

loungewear, underwear, jackets, vests,

hats, everything you can imagine for

apparel. We have screwdrivers. We have

tape. We have bit cases. We have bits.

We have cables. We have cable

management. We have uh thermal pads. We

have uh hand slider things for mouse

pads. We have cable management. We have

keychains, pins, stickers, toys.

>> You haven't even mentioned water

bottles. Pet caves, water balls, desk

pads, stationary.

What is happening?

>> Well, it doesn't move

>> and it just it just keeps going. So,

it's it's difficult to I sympathize with

the problem, but it's difficult to like