Sacred Symbols+, Episode 284 | Catching Up on Legalities With Rick Hoeg

Hey, fellow listener from Michigan here. My dad had a stroke at the beginning of Covid and I saw how hard it is on a person and the family. I am so happy your recovery is going well. You sound great Rick, keep up the rehab and keep getting stronger brother ❤️❤️ Just hearing your voice brought some pretty hard emotions to the forefront. Your lucky because my pop does not sound as good as yourself. Much love.

Socrates Katrivesis

Agreed.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. We love to have him.

Colin Moriarty

We can really only get all five of us together once a month, so we try to use it for the family gatherings we've been doing.

Colin Moriarty

I'm honestly losing steam with it.

Colin Moriarty

Oblivion and Skyrim, yes, but Morrowwind was not.

Colin Moriarty

I've heard the same. I am extra-pleased for him.

Colin Moriarty

I loved this conversation. So happy Hoeg is doing well and getting better! Much love for my fellow Michigander!

Donny C

Biggest takeaway here is Rick saying Xbox isn’t done acquiring after ABK. 👀

NeO JD

My favorite LSM guest host!! Glad to see you're doing well Hoeg, and Colin thanks for continuing to have games industry legal check ins with Hoeg. Hoeg is a great legal mind and I can tell has the enthusiast slant on such topics so great chemistry

Jack Sibert

Much love Hoeg 👏👏👏 glad you're well, wishing you the most positive energy in your recovery

Kendrick Luckenbach

Is that established? I know there was this Idea that physical sales don't do well in the UK in general but i've seen a lot of pushback from people who actually live there on that front. UK is mostly dominated by PS but PS has also recently overtaken MS in the US as well. I'm just wondering if the sales numbers are proportional for these big releases. I'd assume Gamepass does impact that mentality of buying games if you're an xbox only gamer.

RoughSlpr

So glad to hear Hoeg back and glad he’s powering through.

Andrew Gambill

Welcome back, Mr. Hoeg!!! 🎉 Looking and sounding good, Sir!

Joe Perez

Lol. It would most likely be embarrassing for me. Trust me, I’m not a great speaker. Must have edited my post above at least ten times trying to find the right way to phrase my thoughts, and I probably still screwed it up. Have no idea how these guys do it multiple times a week.

Fenixrisingxl21

Hasn't it been pretty well established that Xbox doesn't do well in the UK and that digital sales dominate on Xbox? You are right though that Xbox should release the numbers. I just think that saying "games don't sell on Xbox" is too blunt of a statement and I would like to see exactly what he's referencing. I'm sure SOME types of games don't do well on the platform (i.e. pixel based jrpgs) but as a whole I'm sure games like RE4, Dead Space, Elden Ring, etc. do sell very well on the platform.

Brian Hunter

"Are there hard stats that back this up" The physical games sales data from the UK seems to be some indication Although it would be nice if MS actually released data but they don't want to do that anymore.

RoughSlpr

Have thought this for a while but didn’t have a great way to put into words. Perfectly put and I’m glad I’m not alone.

Bobby Rigo

I'd love to see *you* on the podcast.

Salazarmageddon

I love the topics and am thrilled to see Rick back. One suggestion for the future is I would like to see Colin, Rick & the Dukes together to get a couple of different perspectives of this. Maybe an aftermath discussion of this deal in the months to come.

Kickstand

Always great to hear Colin and Hoeg chop it up on Sacred Symbols. It’s like the legal version of ESPN’s PTI. Lol. Listening to Colin discuss Xbox topics always seems to be a rough experience for me, however, especially when no one makes corrections (when applicable), or provides a counter argument. “They have the (Game Pass) Family Plan that is more expensive than people thought it was going to be.” The $39.95 price has already been confirmed to have come from the New Zealand dashboard. (Supposedly the conversion rate would price the U.S. version at $24.99, which is what it was rumored to be.) Either way, MS still hasn’t confirmed a price in the U.S. The $39.95 price was a story a lot of outlets reported, but never investigated themselves, or went back to correct/update. “They’re buying these games at millions and millions and millions, except for on Xbox, because a lot of people don’t buy games on Xbox anymore.” Where is this idea coming from? (Are there hard stats that back this up, or is it a result of the “Game Pass users don’t want to purchase anything” mentality I’ve seen crop up on the internet?) Xbox fans would know they’d have to buy Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 Remake because they won’t be on Game Pass anytime soon, if ever. Dead Space would be just as easily a skippable purchase by a Playstation consumer, provided that same consumer has an EA Play membership, and is willing to wait. Resident Evil could be skipped by Playstation fans who assume the marketing deal implies it’ll hit PS+ Extra/Premium. Not every Playstation consumer has EA Play or PS+ Extra/Premium, just like not every Xbox consumer has Game Pass, so the primary way to play would still be to purchase. If Xbox fans weren’t purchasing games that much anymore, I’d assume the major publishers would respond by no longer releasing their games on the platform. Publishers like EA, Capcom, and Bandai Namco seem to release on Xbox day one, though. [As an aside, I would love to see what percentage of Xbox consumers buy these multiplatform games compared to Xbox’s install base, and match that up with associated Playstation consumer purchases against Playstation’s install base, and see the delta there (assuming it exists).] “Spending money from something else, and making a new reality is not naturalistic,” and continuing on “…it sucks.” Isn’t that how Sony got into this market? It spent money it made in other industries to get in, to assist with console manufacturing, publisher purchase, exclusivity deals, software development, etc. Microsoft’s been in since providing Windows CE for the Dreamcast, and the rest is history. For every market competitor, whether they came up short or got blown away, they all had to decide if they wanted to reinvest in this space. Sega left the hardware business, but Microsoft didn’t. As long as the money’s coming from the affected player (and not a consortium of ne’er-do-wells), why does it matter? I would assume a company willing to drop $69B has no intentions of leaving the space, and would do its best to make the industry ‘better,’ instead of driving it into the ground. If the logic is “the higher-ups at MS won’t always be there or be altruistic,” that’s true of every market competitor, unfortunately. They can only push the envelope as far as we let them. Hopefully, we’ll all keep them honest. I wouldn’t want any of the current market players to leave, and lose all the innovations we’ve seen from them, or forego the innovations yet to come. Anyway, apologies for this mountain of text. Are we due for a Sacred Symbols/Defining Duke episode anytime soon? (Specifically looking for a discussion/debate on modern/current gaming topics.)

Fenixrisingxl21

Glad to have Rick back and I would definitely be down for an Octopath 2 episode, I'm taking my time with it though, so I would have to avoid any spoiler parts for a bit. I hope they will still vonsider bringing 1 to PS.

TL

Amen. 🙏🏼

BettyAnn Moriarty

Elder scrolls 6 is not coming to ps5 since they bought Bethesda. That is a series that has been on PlayStation for years.

Taylor kazemba

Hoeg’s recovery is incredible. I work in stroke research and the % of people that retain their speech and mobility is very low. Great work from the people who helped him and hoeg himself for working so hard to get back. Very heartwarming.

Welcome back Hoeg! Hope you’re feeling better each day!

Gareth Handa

We love you Hoeg. Welcome back man and we wish you ALL THE BEST!!!!!!!

A Hind D

Great to see you Hoeg!

Derek Alcott

Welcome back (Rick) Hoeg! ❤️ And thank you for the SS+ new episode

Namistai25

Welcome back Hoeg!

Michael (ObjoGaming)

So good to have Hoeg back 👍

OCEL0T

Welcome back Hoeg! You were dearly missed

Jay Bayles

Welcome Hoeg, glad to have you back again!!

Josh Correa

Welcome back, Hoeg! Glad to see you better and back in the saddle!

David Wilson II

Welcome back Hoeg!!!!

Austin Prentice

#ReturnOfTheKing

Alex Patsy

HOEG! ❤️

Dave Ramos