Ep. 1273: Where overall we think it's necessary

-It's Wednesday, May 22, 2013. This is the 404 Show. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Sharon Vaknin. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -Welcome to the program, Sharon Vaknin. -Thank you. -Round of applause for Sharon. It's been way too long. -Thank you. -Very nice for you to join us on this Wednesday. -Happy to. -You've been a busy woman in New York these last few days. You had to sit through that Xbox thing, whatever the hell that was we'll get to in a little bit, and last night you represented CNET at the, what is it, 6th Annual, 7th Annual? -17th? -What? -Wait. -I was off by a decade? -Pretty sure. -Oh, wow. We'll I stand corrected. -Yes. -17th. -Now you're making me doubt myself. -Wait, really? -I didn't know-- -CNET's been around for 17 years? -I didn't know it was that long. We'll find out the number. -Okay. -You're at the webbie awards last night. -I was. -And to accept an award. -Well, we accepted 2 awards. -Awards, plural. What was that like? -There was John Falcone from CNET Review. -Right on. -Very cool. -And we accepted the People's Voice Awards, so this was all thanks to the CNET fans. -Yes. -For how-to and DIY videos. -Also that's you like you're the how-to. -I am. -So it's all you. -Well-- -You deserve this. -Me and my crew. -Right. Of course. -And CNET Reviews got review site. -Cool. -Yes. -That was really awesome. Go us. -Yes. Seriously. -All right. -Here's a picture of you guys accepting your awards on the red carpet afterward. I love that. -Oh. -Look at you and your arm candy. -Oh, my gosh. -Wow. Oh, I like that. -You sort of had like a Star Trek thing going on with your red dress there. I really like it-- -I know. -Because your hair is covering the right parts. It only looks like you have a badge on your left shoulder. I like that. -That's awesome. -Good call. I know I'm wearing what's actually orange but Instagram made it CNET Red Bull red. -Oh. -Okay. Thank you, Instagram. -Yes. -That'll happen. -Damn that hefe, right? -Right. -So what was it like? -So this picture is really interesting. -And this is your first one, right? -This is my first webbie awards, first time attending and so it's cool. So you arrive, there are pre-show cocktails across the street, very lavish. -Really? -Oh, yes. People got their hair done. -Where was it? -The pre-show drinks happened at the American Museum of Science. -Oh. -And then the awards show happened at the Cipriani Wall Street building. -Okay. -I don't know. First time being there, everything looks so beautiful and grand. So drinks were over then you cross the street which is lined by like all these butlers wearing white shirts and black pants. -What? -And as you cross the street you see the red carpet. -Oh. -You see the press like Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly. -Really? -Oh, yes. Hollywood Reporter and the red carpet sort of leads into Cipriani Wall Street. -Yes. -So I was super excited, okay, because we're like internet, you know faces of the internet. We don't get Academy Awards or Oscars. -Sure. -We don't have scandalous paparazzi photos, so this was our chance except that you approach the red carpet and it's blocked off. -Yes. -The only people who can go on the red carpet are the real celebrities. -Oh. -Patton Oswalt was there, Ben Stiller, Kevin Spacey. -And you guys are chopped liver. -Yes. -That's what you guys are. -I mean it wasn't-- so those guys were on the red carpet and I was like oh, heck no. -Yes. -But the fact that you're able to like attend an award show with those celebrities in attendance is kind of cool. -I mean that was awesome, but you know I just wanted to touch the red carpet for just a moment. -Just put your finger on it. -Yes, that's all I wanted and so-- -Did you get to meet any cool celebrities? I know Jerry Seinfeld was there. -He was there, well he was there. He was there. -Through a satellite. -He was there long enough to say his 5 words, and I think he left through the back door. -Oh, okay. -But that was pretty awesome. While we were being seated, Fred Armisen was there. -Oh. -And I don't know if you caught his Google Glass skit on SNL recently. -No. -Oh, my gosh. It was so good. Okay. I'm sure there are many people out there who haven't. It was just ridiculous. It was right after all the editors including CNET got their hands on, or their eyes on Google Glass. -Yes. -And so we meet this guy, you'll have to look it up later. And so I approached him. I was like hey, Fred. -Yes. What did he say? -Good intro, by the way. -I'm telling you. I had objectives, okay? I want to watch the webbies obviously, got the good food, drinks, meet real celebrities-- -Sure. -Touch the red carpet, okay? -Sure. -I had a checklist. -All right. -Okay. -Yes, the webbie bucket list. -Yes, oh absolutely. -Yes. -And so anyway I just went up to him and I told him how much he had the CNET office in San Francisco laughing and that it was great. He was great. -What did he say though? He didn't say anything. -He did this. -He just shrugged his shoulders and said oh-- -Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. -Is that your friend Armisen the friends-- -That's cool. -I know this, Jeff-- -I think it's-- -Because I spoke to him. -Yes. I think it's so awesome how you just sort of really like, hey Fred. -But the best part was that he had a date. -Yes. -And by the way, Fred also left right after he gave his 5-word speech. -Yes. -Or actually no. It was more than 5 words. He presented a winner. -Oh, okay. -And so he was in this state and I was like oh yes, I'm from CNET and so you made us laugh a lot. -No clue what CNET. -No clue, right? -Oh. -And I was like we're a technology news and reviews site. -And you would think because a lot of his comedy deals with tech. -Yes. -Not just on SNL but Portlandia as well. There's a lot of iPhone gags and tech gags on Portlandia. -So you would think. You know I assumed when I watched something like the Glass skit that he maybe that some research watched our CNET First Look video. -Not only that. They parodied CNET before on SNL. -Right. -Yes. -Like it's a thing you know. -Right. -And he's just right over his head. -Except that his date was like I watch CNET. I know CNET. Oh my gosh. That's where I get my reviews. I mean like you're the best right now. -What about his date? Was it someone famous? -A 16-year-old girl apparently. -I mean at heart. -Right on, right on. -Not Fred. -So that was cool. Patton Oswalt was pretty funny. The crowd unfortunately I mean which is sort of to be expected was really busy on their phones most of the time it seemed like. -Oh, we're the worst. -Yes, we are the worst. -Oh. -I mean and it's super ironic when he's like delivering tech-related jokes, you know. -Right. -I was really impressed. I even asked John Falcone, the other guy in the photo from CNET Reviews and I asked him. I said is he really involved in tech because he said things like oh, this was the first year that kickstarter became a place for established companies to get funded. -Right. -Right as supposed to like people who actually needed the money. -Exactly. -I think that is so specific. -Well, that's specific but I mean I'm sure he's got-- I mean I know he's a comedian, but someone's gotta be helping him a little bit with that stuff. -That one I figured out, yes, yes, yes. -I mean although I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He's become this like you know curmudgeony sort of, you know, internet comedy guy. -Yes. -I think he might be a preview to that sort of humor. -Yes. Yes, it seemed like it because you know he would kind of-- he also said some jokes off the cuff that are really isn't funny. -Right. -Who else was there? Who's the guy from the Bachelor? He hosts it. Chris Hardwick or Harrison, whatever? -The Bachelor? -Right. -It's not Hardwick. -Harrison. -Harrison? -He was funny. -You're barking up the wrong tree with that one. -I'm sorry. -You mentioned earlier that you know for the award acceptance speeches, they're only 5 words long. -They are. -What were CNET's for the two that were given? -So for CNET how-to background, the webbie award, the physical award which unfortunately I don't have because they make you buy them now. -But it looks like that. -It looks like this. -Time out. We passed over a very important piece of information. They make you buy the statue? They make you buy the trophy? -I'm sorry. Did I just kind of like-- -Yes. -Glazed over that? -Yes. You just let that out like what was that? Are you serious? -Yes. -What? -They make you buy-- -How much is it? -I think so. Yes. I don't know. -How many can you buy? -Clearly not worth it because we don't have one, right? -Yes. -You just made a big mistake, didn't you? Like oh my God. -No. I think it's public information. That's public information. -Yes, okay. -Definitely. -I think all the winners had an opportunity to buy their award? -Right. -So-- -It's a donation. -Right, something like that. So okay. So the award is a spring. -Right. -So I kind of I took it and I was like "Perfect for our next project." -Yes. -For CNET how-to. -Sure. -And then for CNET Reviews, it was "Thanks, CNET fans, 5 stars." -Huh. -Because it's a People Voice Award. -Right. -I have to say. -Yes, say it. -Before we leave the webbies conversation. -Oh, we're leaving it? -Are we? -I'm kidding. Go. I love to what do you have to say? -No. Overall-- -Yes. -I think it's necessary. -What? Oh, the show itself? -The awards. -Okay. -That should've been your 5-word speech. Oh no, I think it's necessary. -Oh my God. -Let's finish it because I feel like we're just always a shoe-in for one of these, right? -Oh, absolutely. -With a huge audience, yes. -Yes. -So it's just gonna happen. That's the speech next year. -Yes. -Exactly. -Yes. I think this is necessary. -Overall, I think it's necessary. Well because where else are we gonna get recognition? Where else is Grumpy Cat gonna get recognition? -Right. -I mean seriously. Their slogan is, "The internet is huge, winning is huge." -Yes. -And so if you win a webbie, that's like you are one of every-- I don't know, brilliant people in their content. -Right. Isn't there a paradox with that though? -Go on. -We reward internet time the turnover is light speed, right? -Yes. -So we're rewarding things that happen within a given year but in internet time it's like a decade. -Yes, but if most of the time the winners either had content that went viral or in our case had a content that brings people back. -Sure. -And so that is amazing. -Yes. -Right? If you can capture someone's attention, if you can get someone to watch Gangnam Style multiple times in a sea of content like that's really impressive. -Yes. -And so-- -Was he there? -No. -No? -Oh, you know who is there? -Who? -Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. -Oh, that's cool. -And I didn't make the connection until I remembered that House of Cards isn't on TV. -Right. Netflix, yes. -And so they have to be recognized at the webbies. -Sure. Yes. -So like I said overall, I think it's necessary. -That's bad. So was that the highlight seeing Spacey and all the celebrities? That was like the overall highlight for you? -I'm just-- I don't know. Seeing other people from around the internet? -Yes. -I guess that I only see as Twitter avatars. -Right. -Yes. -Some of the speeches were clever. What's his name? Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the GIFs. -Oh, the GIF. -Oh, the Gif guy? -Yes. Steve Wilhite. -Wilhite? Okay. -He's so hot right now. -He is so hot right now. -Yes. -His speech was it's pronounced GIF, not GIF. -Oh. Man, we got schooled on that one. We had a whole argument with Emily when she was here a couple of weeks ago. -We're not wrong though. -We are though clearly-- -I get it. -No. -No. The people should vote. -Yes. -Right. And look. I get it. He invented it, but sometimes things become bigger than you. -It evolves, yes. -And it's evolved into this-- you know I mean the majority of people say it GIF. -Yes. -And that's really-- no one is-- we're not just gonna change overnight. You can't do that. -Right. -Yes, you can't do that. And McDonald's can't be a McDownald's or something all of a sudden. -Exactly. You're 100-- right. -That's rude. -Right and you know-- -Wait, you say McDownald's? -Yes, McDownald's. It was like a W or U in there. -[unk] -Well, there's no J in GIF. -Exactly. -That's right. Yes. -And look. It is what it is. I still think you can go either way with it. But the majority of people know exactly what you're talking about won't confuse it with peanut butter if you just say GIF like the rest of us like we've all agreed on. -Yes. -Right. Yes. I'm sorry. That's how it is. -And for the record, there is another file extension called JIF. Dot J-I-F. -Oh right. Okay. Well, there's TIF. I know there's TIF. -There's TIF, there's also JIF. -Oh, man. There's too many file formats. That's no fun. It's all right, but we'll close the door on the webbies. -Okay. -Congrats for being there. -Thank you. -Thank you for representing CNET over there. -Absolutely and thank you to the fans for getting us there. -Yes. -Until next year. -Next year, we gotta be there. -All right. -Let's do something. -Okay. -Make it so, right, and then it'll happen. -Yes. -We have to talk about Xbox because that happened yesterday. In Redmond Washington, Microsoft held a little event. You probably heard about it because we did. Our first CNET Live from New York. -Yes. -Which was pretty great. -That was cool. -Right. That was pretty awesome. -It went pretty smooth I would say. -Yes. You think it did, right? -Yes. -I think it did. That happened and it was fun and thanks, Ariel, for working the board on that. It was not an easy operation. -Not at all. -It's tough to handle all that. Microsoft gets on stage. They do their little song and dance. -Yes. -And when the dust had settled, we found out that the next Xbox is not called Infinity, is not called 720, no, no, no. We have a much worse name for it. We're gonna call it Xbox One. So right away like for a second take away the specs, take away all the stuff, what do you think of the name because I'm like a name guy. A lot goes into a name. There's a lot in a name and this is something everyone can speak to. What do you think of the name, Xbox One, O-N-E? -I think I'm in the minority because I like it. -Oh, you do like it. -I do. I like it from a consumer standpoint, but for Microsoft I don't know if they just kind of screwed themselves because what's the next one gonna be called? -Two? -Two? -I don't think they screwed themselves. -One S. -Yes. I understand what you're saying. I feel bad for HTC. -That's awkward. -Oh, right. -That's awkward. They're like both riding the elevator together. They look at each other like oh, sorry. -Yes. -So that happened. Yes, I mean I just don't think it's a very authoritative name. It's never a powerful. -I see. -Even with the Wii and hindsight's 2020, but when the Wii came out everyone was like this is a stupid name. It is a stupid name. -Yes. -And it still is a stupid name. -Right. -But One just doesn't evoke that sense of like I get what they're doing. -Power. I see what you're saying. -It's like an all-in-one sort of thing. It's just not a very like you know-- -Yes. -Authoritative. -Feel like Xbox 360 was always a mouthful and you can never shorten it to anything, right? -For instance. -Actually 360 is still 3 syllables though. -Right, but now you can't-- -And a PS1 is like easy to pronounce or like Wii U is super short too. Maybe they just wanted to get a little abbreviated. -I have the One. -Remove a syllable. -Yes. -I always practice it. -I got an XB1. -Yes. And 1 is the best, right? -One. -You're number 1. Maybe that's what they're going for. -Yes. I don't know. It's not the number 1, it's the word one. -Yes. Xbox One. -All right. So we can go on about the name forever, but we still-- the chairman says they should've called it Xbox Intimate. -Oh. -I don't know about that. That's a different product altogether. So it seems like gamers kind of got shafted a little bit with this announcement yesterday. It was not really for gamers. It was more this is what this thing can do. It's your centralized entertainment hub for your living room. You're gonna have live TV integrated with the experience. There's like a 3-layered OS situation going on where there's a dedicated process going on for the TV, a dedicated process going on for gaming and then a dedicated sort of Xbox Windows shell that they're running in the middle. So it's a nice little sandwich they got going on there which is what we assume is allowing people to switch so quickly between these services. If you watch that first demo, they were moving from TV to the games back and forth in pretty quick fashion. -Well, right after the announcement-- -That's what it looks like. -That's what it looked like. -What it looked like. -These are produced announcements, guys. -Right. No. All I'm aware-- -Right. So David Katzmaier, our TV reviews guy. -Right. -He seems pretty skeptical about the channel switching. -Of course as you should be, as I am too because we all know what happened with Nintendo and their ambition to make a TV-integrated product, it's awful. -Yes. -There, we said it. It's awful, okay? Now the thing with Xbox, it has an HDMI in and HDMI out. So we don't know this for sure and this information will slowly but surely come out and we can all wrap our heads around it, but what we understand it to be is that it'll sort of take your set-top box, pipe that in through the Xbox so your Xbox is bypassing your TV. -Yes. -Be the middleman there and then take the-- put its own Xbox overlay over that. -Yes. -And then spit it back out to your television. -Yes. -Right. Now how is it controlling your cable box? Well, the only logical assumption would be that it's using an IR blaster, and we can see from the shot of the back of this thing it does have an IR port. -Right. -Right? -Right. -So that is not gonna be as quick-- -Yes. -As they were implying in the demo. It's kind of ridiculous. -It is. I mean I just reviewed or did a how-to on the Samsung Watch On app for the S4 and Samsung is also trying to get into this space. So basically the Watch On app is a smart television remote and you can control your TV using the built-in IR blaster and instead of you know typing in the numbers, you can just hit food network-- -Right. -And it'll switch to it except it won't just switch to it the way they were trying to-- -Exactly. -A show in the announcement like David Katzmaier was saying my phone will type in 5, 4, 3, 2. -It takes a couple of seconds. -Right. Right. -It's not a very elegant and seamless experience. -Right. -Anyone who's ever used a Slingbox knows exactly what that's like. -Okay. -Slingbox takes a really long time to change the channel. Now I'd imagine it would work a little quicker because you're doing it locally and you're not doing it outside of your home network. I'd imagine it'll be a little quicker but don't be mistaken. -Yes. -It's still gonna lag a little bit and when you say switch to MTV, you're gonna be sitting there for 7 seconds. -Yes. -Which is not like using a remote control. -Right. And so at the end of the day Microsoft, their promise isn't we're gonna make channel switching faster. -Right. -So we can't dwell too much on that. The point is it's an all-in-one. -Yes. -We're making the whole experience-- I mean I was most, not most impressed but one of the things that impressed me most was the snapping, so you could be watching like a football game and then have your fantasy scores on the side like that's awesome. -That and I'm glad you brought that up because to me, you know, the sort of the letdown of having to wait for channels to change is worth it-- -Right. -Because you're getting a very unique TV watching experience unlike anything you could have currently with a set-top box. -Assuming you have at least a 50-inch TV. -At least. -Yes. -Right. -Okay. -So-- -We put that on the table. -Absolutely. So for me I feel like yes. I'm gonna you know if I gotta wait a few more seconds for channels to change and I'm gonna be able to like did you see that demo, Justin. -Yes. -You can snap like Skype next to whatever you're watching. -Yes. -You can snap in Internet Explorer, you can snap even maybe gameplay or like something like that next year. Tell me that's cool. -Yes. -And that's something that Nintendo wasn't even scraping at. -Yes. -So the thing is at the end of the day, do consumers want, do we want to see those scores on the TV? -I think some people do. -Okay. I mean-- -I don't. -Are we already content with you know just kind of having our phone and looking at-- -Right. -I don't-- -Again, they gotta make it easy enough for dummies. -Right. -The second the dummies can figure this out and be like oh, this is just a seamless great experience then it'll catch on. There is way too much right now just, you know, up in the air diciness. It's very hazy right now how it will all work. I hope we get more information from now before E3 but if not, you know, E3 is only 3 weeks away, so we'll figure that out. -Pricing and availability, please. -Yes. You know what? I mean I care. That's a huge part of the story. -Yes. -But for me it's like yes, they'll get to that. That'll happen. -Yes. -It's coming out this year so you know what that means. It's coming out for Christmas. -Yes. -That's when it's coming out for the holiday season. That's when it'll be here. Don't worry. This Black Friday will be the worst Black Friday ever. Okay? That's definitive right now. -Okay. Go. -PlayStation 4, Xbox One, it's over. Don't leave the house. It's gonna be awful. -Yes. -And that's the big takeaway. Price is a big thing. I think this is like a $400 to $500 thing. -Okay. I'm glad you said that. -Why? -It better not be the $599 PS3 price that we all paid, only to be betrayed by like a $300 price tag months later. -It's insane. It's insane. Well, I mean is this something-- now, you should really have something to say about this, Justin, because it's not just the press conference yesterday was really not aimed at gamers. -Right. -I am pretty sure 60 minutes they did not show gameplay once. -Yes. -Right? They didn't show an actual person playing a game live demo on the stage. -Yes. -They didn't do it once, okay? Anyone else wanna like you know take a step back and think about that for a second, that's freaking insanity. -Right, right, right. -They did that at the PS4 thing, someone was playing Watch Dogs at least. -Yes. -So this press conference is not aimed at gamers really. It aimed at like people-- it's the first console not for gamers really. What do you think about some of the features they were showing off? -You know it was funny like as I was watching the demo after, as I was watching the press conference afterward, I was also reading comments online of what people were saying about the initial impressions and they were all negative. They were overwhelmingly really, really bad. And it kind of got me wondering about press conferences in general but specifically this one too, do you think that people that you know follow something online for such a long time-- -Yes. -Right? And then spend the time to watch a 2-hour press conference and then go online to comment on that afterwards might have bigger expectations. I'm wondering if these internet commenters may not be the majority of what gamers have in terms of their opinion. You know what I mean? Do you think the average gamer is gonna think about this console negatively or is it just the people that are shouting loudest online right now that get heard the most. -All right. Well, first of all you didn't answer my question but second of all-- -But I know, okay. I'll answer really quick. I think it's really cool. I think like the voice activation features write that fact that it could sense heartbeats is incredible. -What's up with that, right? -The fact that it can sense motion in complete darkness supposedly is awesome. -Right. -And then the ability to play games and have video going through Skype or watching a movie and then chatting on Skype at the same time-- -Yes. -Is awesome. -Right. -You know like you don't have to do the okay, press play on 3 and have like a phone conversation and talk about something and you're watching at the same time. It's awesome. I think that's really cool. -So you do think it's cool? -So I think there's a lot of positive things about it. -Okay. -But all I heard was hate. -Right, but that's the internet for you, dude. It's just the platform for people to complain. -Yes. -Right? I think you have to remove yourself from all that and just look at it, oh obviously we do as journalists have to be completely, you know, objective about the whole thing, but I think there's a sense-- -Is it a timeframe thing, I mean because people have been waiting for so long-- -Yes. -After the 360 came out, how long has it been like almost a decade, right? -It's gonna be by the time it comes out, it'll be around 8 years. -Right. Is it the length of time that they spent between the consoles that makes people so negative about it? -No. I think at the end of the day, people just wanna be wowed. They just wanna see something that they-- they wanna see like the DeLorean flying like they wanna see something so out of the freaking box that they just can't even put into words. -I think they're sizing themselves up. -And that's what it is. It's only until you take your, you know, take a step back and really not necessarily lower your expectations, but temper them and realize that press conferences are freaking really hard to do. -What-- -Okay. Well, what's the bottom line for gamers? I mean-- -It's the games, right? -And that's not necessarily rhetorical, right? It's like it's the games-- -Right. -It's graphics. -For the gamers, they're disappointed and they should be because it wasn't a good press conference for games. -It wasn't, you know, but we're talking about 2 different things. It wasn't a good press conference for games, but is the console good for games? -Yes. -We don't know yet. I mean it's-- -But based on the specs, it sounds awesome. -Yes, it's a high-end gaming PC. -Yes. Remember like people were really complaining about the lack of storage and how you have to take it apart on the 360 and then put your own hard drive in. That's a big hassle. To have the USB 3 on the port on the front, that's awesome. -Yes. -It's good. -Right, you can have unlimited storage and external storage is very cheap now. -That's fine. I mean-- -You can add terabytes as storage for a couple of hundred dollars. -But it should have a 2-terrabyte drive in it. Why does it only have half the terabyte? I don't understand that. -Yes. -Yes. -Like what's that about? -500 gigabytes isn't enough. -It's enough-- -I guess if you're acting as a home hub for all your entertainment stuff you might need more-- -I mean well you're hearing now that you're gonna have to install the entire game regardless of what it is onto the box. -Yes. -Right? If these are gonna come on what we can imagine are Blu-rays, right? Blu-rays can hold up to 50 gigabytes. -Yes. -You know that's 10 games, right? So I don't-- -So you can't install games on an external drive? -I think you can. -Oh, okay. -Sounds like you can. -Okay. -But yes. I mean it's still you know like you know. So I mean yes. The games are gonna look good. -We'll have a how-to for that, Jeff. Don't worry. -It's a high-end gaming PC. It's no different from something you can you know like it's gonna look good. -Blu-ray player and Tact 2 if it's 500 bucks, that's a great deal. -I mean well really-- -Maybe. -It's just a high-end gaming PC I guess. -That's all it is. -Look sideways. -And not even. It's kind of like above average you know right now. By the time it comes out-- -Yes. -I mean you can build something that's more powerful than this thing right now. I mean it has 8 gigabytes of RAM now. Like you buy like a high-end PC that the standards become like 16 now. -Right. -So you know look. It's tough. -Yes. -We've been playing games on PS3 and Xbox for almost 8 years now and yes, those games don't look as good as you know the PC counterpart. -Yes. -But they still look pretty decent. -Yes. -Like I don't know about you guys but Tomb Raider on 360 looks ridiculous. -Yes. -And when I saw GTA on PS3 looked really good so I mean it's not-- -Yes. The PS3 still looks good, yes. -It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. -How do you feel about the controller because I have a picture of it up here. It looks exactly the same as the 360, whereas I remember-- -Well, it doesn't look exactly the same. -Almost. I mean it's the same shape especially compared to stuff like the Wii U. -Looks a little taller. -That came out and-- -It does look taller. -Are you glad that it doesn't have screens and motion sensor pads on the front and back of it? -Yes. -I'm happy about that. -I'd imagine gamers were happy that it's just a gaming pad. -I'm happy-- -And not another TV. -It seems they did a bang-up job with the D-pad, that Godforsaken D-pad that made the 360 controller, you know, imperfect. -Yes. -It sounds like there's 4 independent locations for vibration which is something no controller has ever done. -Yes. -So you can have like front-loaded vibration, back-loaded vibration. I've heard some stuff about the triggers, how they're more sensitive to programming and stuff like that which is really interesting. Yes. I'm definitely into it. I think it looks good. I wanna get my hands on it and feel what it looks, you know, see what it feels like. -Yes. -But yes. I'm into it. I think it's a nice-looking piece of hardware there. -I think it was a smart choice by Microsoft to keep it simple. -Sure. -But especially because well, they have their SmartGlass app. That by the way is going to get really confusing over the next year. -It's our thing, yes. -Okay. -I mean I don't know anyone who uses it now, how it's gonna be a thing down the road and it's tough. -Well-- -They haven't sold me on that yet. -Yes. We'll see. I mean maybe as you know the screen captures that you record your gameplay captures can be beamed to your phone or instantly accessible by your phone, things like that. I mean but that sort of explains why they didn't pollute the controller with screens and LEDs or whatever. All of that will happen on the phone. -Yes and I'm just glad there's no silly touch thing. I'm sorry. When I saw that PS4 controller I was like what is going on over there. -Yes. -It's got that flashing light for the move thing. To me that comes off a little gimmicky. -Yes, yes. -Is how that comes off. So let's get into the actual games that they did talk about. There's EA who just came out and said we have a new engine and these 4 EA games, sports games are gonna use the new engine, but that to me that doesn't really do anything for me because there's no exclusivity there. They came out at the end with the Call of Duty Ghosts Trailer that did nothing for me as well because that game is nothing new. We all knew what it's gonna be. I mean how could you not think it's gonna be on the next Xbox. It's obviously gonna be there. So I think that's kind of silly and then they talked a little bit about a new game called Quantum Break from the guys at Remedy who made the first Max Payne, the first 2 Max Paynes actually, and Alan Wake, that seems really promising like live action actors. -Right. That looks beautiful. -High grade with like game, you know. It's just a trailer. We don't know how that's gonna work. -Like the Sims but for gamers. -Maybe. -Oh, my God. -And then they said we're gonna have 15 brand new games for the first year it's out and 8 brand new franchises which I think is awesome and-- -And-- -And that's the biggest-- at the end of the day that's all that matters, is console exclusivity. -What about-- -That's all it matters. -What about Halo and Steven Spielberg? -You tell me. I mean if you can get excited about a franchise like Halo, to me I like the Halo games. I think they're very good. I don't play those games for the story because the story is just not as good as other stories and other games as far as I'm concerned. -I don't play Halo. I was just-- -But it is interesting to see that they are going that route that Netflix is doing where they're building their own content. -Exactly. Maybe we'll see them at the webbies. -That is crazy. Maybe. Did you hear about this, dude? They're getting Steven Spielberg to work on this Halo-- -In a TV show. -TV show. -That is cool. -Yes. Yes. -And they mentioned it would be premium. -Right. -Which probably means-- -Xbox Gold subscribers. -Something like that. -Yes. -Yes. -All right. So that's that. -Yes. -There you go. There you have it. There's no backwards compatibility. You might be able to at one point I would imagine you can download 360 games onto it and have some sort of-- -That better be an option. -I would imagine- -Okay. -That is gonna be but they haven't said that yet, and there's also this weird, you know, up in the air used game policy where each game is gonna have a code associated with it. -Right. -And if you try and install it on a friend's console, you might have to pay the fee like the same price as the actual game, all that information is still very hazy and I kind of think it's a little lame that Xbox did not have their craft together when it came to answering that specific question. -Yes. -If you look across the board, Wired has something different. Polygon had something different. Everyone is all fragmented all over the board. Pretty upsetting that they couldn't get this straight answer out to the public. -Where games stop. -Yes. Well, you know-- -What are they gonna do? -Sometimes you gotta take the dog out in the back and-- -They'll join Blockbuster. -I guess in the physical renting graveyard. -Yes. -But it is what it is, progress is a bitch. What are you gonna do? -Yes. -All right? -All right. -I mean they said they're not eliminating reselling is a quote I did read. They're not eliminating-- -So right. It sounds-- -Reselling. How that works-- -A lot like lending ebooks. Okay? -Sort of, yes. -I mean yes. So I have a Nook and if I have a book that just so happens to be lendable because not all books are lendable-- -Right. -I can let a friend borrow it but don't get excited because during those 2 weeks when my friend can borrow it, I can't access it. -Right. -So it sounds like that's probably what it's going to be like. -But just from a psychological standpoint. -Yes. -We all grew up playing video games and we'd all bring our favorite game over to our buddy's house. -Yes. -Hey, you gotta see Double Dragon 2, Jimmy. -Street Fighter. -It's freaking awesome. Oh, dude, bring over your Street Fighter. We'll play it all night. That's not-- that world is over, it sounds like. -No. It sounds like you can bring it over to a friend's house but you have to sign in to your own Xbox Live account. -If that's the thing, if that's the thing. -Supposedly. I don't know. That was one report that I read. -I would imagine that's how it will go. -Right, but if they want it but then they'll have to sign-- -But that basic-- -In and maybe pay for something. -Right, but that basic sort of, you know, there's no more borrowing. -Oh, there's no more physical disks anymore. -There's no more borrowing. -Yes. -Right. -Is what that means which is a little sad. -Maybe. -Little bit. -I mean maybe no more borrowing. -We don't know for sure, right. -Okay. -Yes. So we'll find out. -That doesn't matter because we have jobs and we could pay for stuff now. It's really just the kids that have to worry about this stuff. -Yes. What about the kids? -I hate kids. -No. -Who do you thinks buy-- -They need more problems in their life, I'm stressed right now. -Who is buying these things, man? Who do you think is buying these things? -Your parents. -The parents. -The parents are. Yes. -All right. -All right. We'll end that. I think tomorrow we're actually gonna bring on Frushstick. He asked if you wanted to come on talk some more about Xbox stuff. So if you wanna just you know go back to the farm you can do that tomorrow, Justin. Let's move along and talk a little bit about something else. I wanna talk about the many faces of-- -Let's talk on games a little more, we might as well riding on the subject. -Hey. If you wanna do this man. -Well, that's weird and I could tell that chair is looking at this right now because I can see him a Google doc that you click on it and now I wanted to show you guys something. I think you're gonna get a kick out of it, Jeff. We're talking about GIFs. -Yes, GIFs. Whatever earlier GIFs and this is a really-- -Gipes. -I'm talking about Gipes earlier. This is really cool. So apparently there's a guy on Reddit that has just been collecting video game backgrounds from some of his favorite vintage games of the past, right? -Okay. -And by backgrounds I mean like you know in Street Fighter there'll just be like you know a jungle atmosphere at the back and like 2 guys just like moving back and forth and is animated. So this guy actually made a bunch of GIFs out of these backgrounds without the fighters in them. -It's pretty cool. -I thought we could play a fun game right now, a game that I can't participate in, which is-- -Oh, is it name that game? -And it's name that game, so here's an album of 125 background images from some of hopefully your guys' favorite video games. -Like I know I said I could stick around for a while but-- -So we're gonna be over the next 3 hours guessing a lot of games. I actually don't have the answers to any of them. So-- -Oh, God. -Maybe we'll let the chat room decide. We'll go through a few of them, so-- -These are tough, man. -Here they are. -These are tough. -I mean do you play a lot of fighting games? -I mean I do. -Okay. Sailor Moon, Ferngully. -Wow. -Pirates of the Carib-- no. I'm just making-- -That was like. -The problem with this is that they're all from older games. -Right. -So you're really gotta go back into the memory bank. A lot of them look like they're from Street Fighter. -These are all like cinema graphs, right? -Right. Yes. -So these are like moving GIFs, only part of the image is moving. -Right. -Oh. That's awesome. -But that's basically what the background of fighting games were. -Right. -They're like a very, you know, 4-frame animated sort of thing. -This is so cool. -Going back and forth. These are very cool. Some of them are Street Fighter. Some of them, I don't think any of them are Mortal Kombat. -Oh, here's King of Fighters. -Yes. They're all-- -Oh, wow. -This is Guile, right? I wanna say this is Guile. -Yes. -I think that's the newer Guile. -Yes. -Yes. There's a bunch so for people who are listening, this must be awful, but you know this is like the weird sort of like locations that these fighting games would take place in. -Right. -For some reason, people always decide to convene for a fight in a disco. -Yes. -And none of them moved either. -Or in the middle of the street. -They're just cheering it on. It's all sanctioned fighting. -It is pretty cool and I love that generic, you know, like fist pump that some of the people in the back did like go. Go, go. -Yes. -Yes. -So I like that. -Oh, the best is in Street Fighter. I think other games did this too where you could interact with the background in some of the levels. -Right. -Right? Like you could throw someone and they would bash through like a barrel or something. -Oh yes. -Sure. -I like that. -Yes. It's pretty cool though from an artistic point of view. -Incredible. -Very awesome. -And it's something that never really gets looked at because you're always paying attention to the game. -Right. -You don't really get to look at the background, so you're not gonna spend as much time looking at these. -You never appreciate it. -It's cool. -Yes. -Right? You never appreciate it. -Wow. -That is art. -All right. -Amazing. -We got about 10 minutes left. -Okay. -I want you to pick something else because I don't wanna step on your toes here because-- -No. I don't know. What do you guys wanna do? -I decide. -Yes. Sharon, you decide, the guest. -Yes. You pick it. Spin the wheel, Sharon. Where do you wanna go right now? -Urban Dictionary. -Yes. All right. -Urban Dictionary. -Yes. -I love me some Urban Dictionary. -Do you use Urban Dictionary a lot? Have you submitted a word to Urban Dictionary? -Oh, probably a long time ago. I did have to look something up, some hashtag that I didn't understand on Twitter recently. -What was it? -Did I use Urban Dictionary? Well, it was something like subtweet. -Subtweet? -Have you heard about this? -What the hell is that? -I don't know what that is? -Is that-- yes. What the hell is subtweet? -Well why don't you urban dictionary it? -Oh. -Well, subtweeting is basically you know when people are really cryptic on Twitter. -Yes. -Or on Facebook even. They either post some song lyrics or they say something like I'm so tired about people who run their mouths. -Like passive aggressive tweets. -Yes. Oh, passive aggressive. -They're PATs, passive aggressive tweets. -Oh okay. My bad. You should add that to Urban Dictionary. -Yes. PATs they're called. Yes. -Yes. -Okay. So-- -When in all likelihood that person isn't reading this tweet at all. -Actually, if we're talking about current present day teenagers. -Yes. They are. -They probably are. -They are, they are. Yes. -Oh, God. Yes. -Oh. It's a totally passive aggressive tweet. -And then they passive aggressively favorite the tweet. -Right. -And it's just-- -And then everyone feels paranoid that they're talking about them. -Exactly. -Right. -That's the flow-- -So that's called subtweeting. -Okay. -I like PAT better. -I kind of PAT is cool but it could be confused with other things. -Yes. With like PAT. -Or the guy. -Subtweet, I like it. -I like that. -It's a total passive aggressive way to directly refer to a person without like you said mentioning them directly. -Yes. -The reason we bring up Urban Dictionary though-- -Yes. -Is because some courts are now using it for slang definition. -This is crazy to me, yes. So slang is apparently a recurring problem in court cases where vulgarity is an issue. And so in order to determine whether or not a word being cited in court is vulgar, lawyers and judges are now taking to Urban Dictionary to see the definition of these slang terms that they don't know themselves. -That's amazing. -Which is incredible because I never thought that you could just like Wikipedia doesn't count as a citable entry in a position paper-- -Right. -Or in a college essay. -Right. -I didn't think that Urban Dictionary entries could pass in court as admissible evidence but apparently you can. So this is a New York Times article and it talks about how in the last year alone the website was used by courts to define words like iron which is apparently slang for a handgun. -Wait, what? Who? What is-- -Iron. -Iron? -Iron. -Yes. -Okay. -A handgun, right. -I believe it. -Catfishing which is you know what catfishing is? -Oh, I know what catfishing is. -What is it? -It's when you're a creep to people and lying about your identity in the internet. -Exactly. -And then you get a football player to think that you're real and you're not. -Yes. -It has to be a football player. -It has to. -Yes. -So it's like internet predators using this to fabricate identities. -Right. -Daps was cited in a court case and-- -That I don't know. -They had to look it up on Urban Dictionary. You live give someone like daps, right? -Daps. -Like-- -Fistpumping. -Yes. Like a props, yes. -Props? -Props, yes. -I'll give you daps. -Kudos if you will. -Daps, man. -Yes. So like daps was used. -I'd practice that in the mirror. Okay. -You'll always connect. I guarantee you. -Oh and grenade which is my favorite. -What? -Of course grenade popularized by Jersey Shore. -Oh. -Have you heard of the word grenade? -No. -I've heard of that. -And so this is the official definition of grenade. A solitary ugly girl always found with a group of hotties. So if you're gonna do your friend a solid-- -It's so messed up. -When he's trying to hook up with a girl, you jump on that grenade and hook up with the "ugly one." -Do you just-- -The ugly one. -The grenade. -That sentence right there was entirely composed of slang right there. -Yes. -Yes. -Jump on that grenade. -Jump on that grenade. -And you'll hook up with that girl. -Yes. -Right. -Then you get daps. -Nicely done, daps, man. Daps. -So there it is. Yes. It's really amazing, but this is the problem is that obviously if you go on Urban Dictionary, lot of the words have thousands of definition. -Multiple, yes. -Like for example, I looked up the word emo, right? Emo. A very controversial term, right? -Dangerous. -We'll have to get into our personal definitions of it. -Dangerous. -But it has 1,122 entries in it. -What? Emo is sad. -Could be. -Could be. -Could be other things, too. -Oh. -It's a, you know, you're a west coast, no I'm kidding. -Oh. -It's both sides but there's a lot of definition. -Yes. -Yes. Whether or not the hairstyle is involved. -Right, clothing. -It goes on forever, man. -Got it. -Right. It's like they go into the differences between goth and emos, right? Some guy says this is definition number 3, like goth only much less dark and much more Harry Potter. That is the number 3 in popularity which is-- -That's so good. -Yes. -That's pretty accurate. -Urban Dictionary has some of the best writing on the internet. -Yes. -Even though it's always grammatically incorrect. -Right. -But it's problematic because anyone can create an entry to like we did. -Right. -Do you remember the only Urban Dictionary entry the 404 has created and I believe you, Jeff, are cited as its creator. -I'm not proud of this. -And I'm gonna look that up right now. -I'm not proud of this and there's a woman in the room and I'm gonna turn red if we have to look it up. It's nothing that bad. You're a grown woman. You know, you've seen this. The word was called-- what was the word, Justin? -You had it. -I had it. -The word was to get Wilson. -I don't know. What? -Wait, what? -Oh, I thought it was-- -Wait. What are you? What are you talking about? -Wait, Jeff. You just said the saddest slang. -Okay. Let me tell this story and then I want you to tell what you are talking about. -Okay. First of all-- -What? -I guarantee you everyone is thinking what I'm thinking. No one's thinking of Wilson. -That's the only one that I-- okay. So let me explain this. When Wilson was on the show, remember that guy? We created the word Wilson to refer to someone who has bad luck. So here it is. This is the Urban Dictionary entry. It also refers to someone who shit their pants which apparently Wilson has done as well. I don't know. There's also a definition to get Wilson as the third most popular when a guy cheats on you with your own friend and the situation gets ugly usually ending in a catfight and his car getting tamponed. I've been Wilsoned again. -What? -Wow. -Wow. -I get blown away by this. Can I get-- -He's been doing a lot of things since the 404. -Okay. See, I'm not credited there though and that's not a lot of votes or whatever. This is so much more legitimate I think because this is legit-- -I'm excited. -Why don't you click the link I just threw up in the rundown, okay? -Oh. -Do you see that? -Oh. That one. -That one which is so much more-- -You are so infantile. -This is so much better. Oh my God. -I remember that. -Oh. -Do you remember this, Sharon? -No. I'm just saying the word out of a corner of my eye. -All right. Throw this up there if you will. Dicktopping. Remember it? Wow. -Dicktopping. -I don't remember that. -Well, you-- -It was before your time. -Oh, it was before me. -it is before your time. So dicktopping is the art of act rather of drawing a phallic symbol on some sort of landmark but then being able to see it from space. -Right. Not necessarily space. -Or like a helicopter, like a helicopter. -Do you remember the genesis of the term? -Yes. -What? Does that exist? -Yes. It's a thing. -Oh, yes. -Dude, it's on Urban Dictionary. Look it up. -We've done it. -Wow. -We've done it. -Many paint rollers and cans were used for our dicktopping. -There is a cited article that was the influence for it, right? -The word was invented by the-- -There you go. I'm not joking. It's a real thing. It's drawing a male member on something so it could be seen by someone flying over like-- -Like the Mars rover. -Right. Mars rover dicktop mars. -Right. -Right? So that is the thing, man. That's totally a thing. And that-- -So this story came from a student in the U.K. a guy named Rory McInnes who did a little bit of art on the rooftop of his own home. -Oh, my God. -A very well drawn phallus, I must admit. Look-- -We are changing the subject. -Can we show it? It's a missile. -We are changing the subject. -Yes. It has its own-- -So there it is. He dicktopped his own roof. -There you go. -That's art. -This is the origin. -Oh, wow. -Oh, it's not that bad, Sharon. -Oh, no. -So we talked about this story. -Yes. -And it's a lot like Dick Chicken, that graffiti artist we're talking about who draws a chicken penis. -Right. So anyway-- -So anyway-- -So we created that and that's what I thought you meant, man. -So that's 2 entries. -I didn't think you meant Wilson. That was the last thing on my mind. Have you added anything to Urban Dictionary, Sharon, that you're proud of that you want to admit? -You know, no. I have not added anything. I referenced it a lot. I Urban Dictionaried myself. -Yourself? Oh, Vaknined. -No. -Oh, I can't believe it. I totally got Vaknined last night. I don't even know what that means but it sounds-- -Oh, we don't know. We don't know yet. -We can start one. -Sounds good to me. -We can start one. -There are entries. I think there are entries for just about any name that people kind of go in there and-- -Right. -I'll see Jeff-- -I know Jeff is something stupid. -Oh no. -Oh, yes. Well then there's-- -She's getting an iron kick. -A fabulous name. -What? -Fabulous name. -Anyone who has it should be proud of them. -Yes. Skip that part. -Yes. -All right but I think we learned a lot. -Yes, I think we did. -I think we learned a hell of a lot information today. -Daps, man. -Oh, yes. Absolutely. -Daps all around. -Daps all around. Thank you to Sharon Vaknin. -Thanks for having me. -Joining us on the 404 today, always a pleasure. When is the next time you're in New York? -Oh, well, I don't know. -Yes. All right. We'll make it sooner than later. -Just spontaneously. -All right. These are always fun shows whenever you come on. -CNET fans, win us another webbie and I'll be back. -Yes. Absolutely. Follow Sharon on Twitter @sharonvak, watch all of her excellent videos on CNET and keep up with her because there's a lot of good stuff coming out of Sharon. Awesome. -Sounds good. -Thank you so much for being here again. -Thanks, guys. -Enjoy the rest of your time in New York. -Thanks. -Thank you for representing us at the webbies last night. Anything else we can thank Sharon for? -What's the next year's 5-word webbies speech again? I don't want you to forget and that should be the show title today. -Overall, I think it's necessary. -Overall, I think it's necessary. -And I wanted to give you guys this pin. -No. -Yes. -No. -No. We don't deserve that. -We can't accept that. -We don't deserve that. -Yes. -It seems like-- -I still-- -A purple heart. -You have like 5 more at home. -Actually I jacked it. -You jacked it. -Oh, I like that. -Nice. -Well, thank you very much. -You're welcome. Thanks for having me. -She just pinned you, man. -Are we gonna have to share this? -Yes, yes. -Cool. -You get the sharp part. I get the dull part. -Yes. I appreciate that. -Excellent. -Ouch. -My plan is complete. -Leave us, leave us a voice mail, 866-404-CNET or you can email us the404@CNET.com. We still have an excellent contest going on, the NBA2K13 and MLB 2K13 contest continues. You have until the end of the month. We'll link to that in the show notes as well and we're back here tomorrow with Russ Frushstick and then Friday, Arrested Development's Tony Hale will be on the program. That'll be kickass. So we'll see you then. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Sharon Vaknin. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -This has been the 404 Show, High Tech, Low Brow. Thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.