Xbox Games Showcase Deep Dive | World of Warcraft: The War Within

ANNOUNCER: Games in this podcast are rated T.

[XBOX SOUND]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. And all this week, we've been diving deep into the games you've seen at the Xbox Games Showcase. Now, if you've missed one from earlier in the week, don't worry. Check them all out at youtube.com/xbox, Spotify, or wherever you download your podcasts.

And today, we're so happy to welcome teammates from Blizzard to the new and improved Xbox Podcast set to talk World of Warcraft-- The War Within. And what better way to do that than to team up with the host of the WoWCast, Community Manager Bethany Stout. Bethany, how are you doing today?

BETHANY STOUT: Hey, I'm great. Thanks for having us. This is amazing.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it's a little WoWCast-Xbox Podcast crossover. I love that.

BETHANY STOUT: I love that.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it's--

BETHANY STOUT: More of these.

MALIK PRINCE: Exactly. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

BETHANY STOUT: I am the community manager of World of Warcraft. And I've been playing World of Warcraft for around 18 years. [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: Wow.

BETHANY STOUT: I wish I could say the full 20, but--

MALIK PRINCE: You jumped in. It's fine.

BETHANY STOUT: I jumped in. It took me some time. But I am so happy to be working on the game that I've been so passionate about. Working on World of Warcraft has been a blessing because this game is just filled with amazing people to work with and amazing people to play with.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

BETHANY STOUT: And yeah, so.

MALIK PRINCE: Now, you're not only the community manager-- as you mentioned, you said 18 years. You're also a fan. Can you tell us a bit about what that journey once you did decide to jump in was like?

BETHANY STOUT: So I had a friend who kept begging me to play. And I was like, ugh, it's an MMORPG. I'm already playing some. How can I do this? I don't know if I can leave these other games that I love. But OK.

So he's like, I'll sell you on it. And I was like, OK. And then he showed me flying in this-- in the first expansion The Burning Crusade. And I was obsessed with that because I had never experienced flying in an MMORPG before.

MALIK PRINCE: Nice.

BETHANY STOUT: And also, he sold me on the Druid class, which, I can shapeshift into different animals. And I've never-- like, I'm a healer at heart. And I'm also an animal lover.

And so the fact that I can be a cat and I can just change different specializations-- tanking, healing, anything-- I just-- yeah, I was like, sold me, sold me for 18 years and going.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it's always interesting when you're set into a game and that one thing that catches you-- and you jump in. And you're, like, stuck in there. But before we go on, though, Bethany, I do have a confession to make. I am not a WoW player.

BETHANY STOUT: Oh, my--

MALIK PRINCE: And so you're here to be the expert. You're going to teach me the ways. And by the end of this, I feel like I'm going to be an expert.

But you didn't just come by yourself, Bethany. You brought some guests with you, didn't you?

BETHANY STOUT: I brought some guests also--

MALIK PRINCE: Who have been sitting--

BETHANY STOUT: --waiting to play. Wow.

MALIK PRINCE: They've just been sitting waiting for--

BETHANY STOUT: [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: --as we've been talking about the game.

BETHANY STOUT: Yeah, they're just waiting. [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: Who do we have with us today?

BETHANY STOUT: Yes, I brought two wonderful people who are integral parts of World of Warcraft, Holly and Ion.

MALIK PRINCE: Hey, what's going on, y'all?

HOLLY LONGDALE: Hey. So happy to be here. My name is Holly Longdale. I am the executive producer of World of Warcraft. I've been playing for 20 years as a player.

So I joined Blizzard about four years ago. And it's the joy of my life to work with this team and on this game after playing it for all those many years and all those classes. So I play kind of everything.

BETHANY STOUT: Yes.

HOLLY LONGDALE: I do lean towards elves. That's kind of my thing.

BETHANY STOUT: Same.

HOLLY LONGDALE: So Malik, there's going to be something for you in there. I still--

MALIK PRINCE: Mental note.

HOLLY LONGDALE: I'm going to encourage you to go elf.

MALIK PRINCE: Elves.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: OK. Got it. Got it.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: OK. I'm taking that note now, Holly. Ion, how's it going?

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Hi. I'm Ion Hazzikostas, game director on WoW-- also 20-year player at this point.

BETHANY STOUT: Yes.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: I think for Bethany, her moment that hooked her was flying. For me, it was actually just day one logging in on an orc shaman, who sounded cool, looked awesome, and literally hitting spacebar for the first time in World of Warcraft-- just the humble jump button.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And just the--

MALIK PRINCE: That's true.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: The visceral feel of-- like, the weight to hitting it and moving through the world compared to other massive online games at the time.

I was like, this is special. This is wild. And then it was a deep rabbit hole to go down. But really, at this point, it's crazy looking back at a game that really has shaped the better part of my adult life.

MALIK PRINCE: I mean, there's so many ways to go with that. I always love when I hear stories of people playing a game and then working on the game. Now, I'm no mathematician. But 18, 20, 20-- that's 58, right?

[LAUGHTER]

58 years of experience that are working on this game. And I'm sure that's multiplied by the amount of people who are working there. So that is incredible.

I think we always love when devs have grown up playing the game and lived the game that they're working on it because you have the best interests of the game at heart, right? I love that.

But there's an elephant in the room. This is the Xbox Podcast. Can you tell our fans, like, what y'all are doing here?

HOLLY LONGDALE: We're really excited to be part of the Xbox family.

MALIK PRINCE: Not that we don't love having you here.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Well, yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

BETHANY STOUT: [INAUDIBLE]

MALIK PRINCE: (PLAYFULLY) What are you hear for?

HOLLY LONGDALE: We're just super excited to be part of Xbox now coming from Blizzard. And we're representing the PC game World of Warcraft.

So we're super excited to be here. And we want to share with all of the Xbox fans that we're here. We're here to stay. We've been around for 20. We're not your dad's game.

We're not your mom's game. We're going to be around for 20 more at least. And we want to invite everybody in to this incredible experience as we get into our 20th anniversary and this incredible saga that's kicking off a three-expansion incredible, epic journey.

BETHANY STOUT: The timing is also specific because it's the 20th anniversary.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Yeah. This is a huge year for World of Warcraft in general. It's really humbling to reflect upon my own relationship with the game but really just to look back on the journey that we've taken as a development team with our community. Right?

We are a game that has grown and evolved as our community has. And 20 years ago, maybe a knock on WoW was like, well, this is a game that is going to consume your soul.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Right? Like, don't even don't even think about playing this game unless you have endless hours to devote to it. Because that's what it's going to take from you. And I think not everyone has that time to spare these days, right? We're all busy.

BETHANY STOUT: Not anymore.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: We all have a lot of responsibilities. But we want to maintain a relationship or build a new one with this world that's been so special for so many people.

And so I think evolving over the years to keep that depth for those who want to seek it but making sure that there's a wide range of levels of commitment and relationship you can have with the game and still have an epic, fulfilling experience, right, whether you are just questing on your own and exploring the world; whether you're getting together with a couple of buddies and going into one of the new delves that's coming in War Within for, like, 20 or 30 minutes; or whether you're just a collector who wants to earn all the things, put together sick outfits, and show them off-- there's so many different ways to play World of Warcraft.

I think that's part of what's kept the game as vibrant as it has been for the last 20 years, just the diversity and the continued evolution.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, 100%.

HOLLY LONGDALE: We branched out, too, based on what our players wanted and how they want to play. So we have World of Warcraft Classic, which is sort of the nostalgic version of the game. If that's your jam and you want to experience what the MMO was like back in 2004 when it launched-- very vibrant community.

It's very unique as opposed to what we call WoW modern, which is what we're going to be talking about today with The War Within. And then in our modern game, we've been doing updates, like, every eight weeks. We've added game modes. We're experimenting. We're listening to the players. And we'd love to invite everyone in to come and try the new WoW.

MALIK PRINCE: And we're going to get into a little bit about what I can expect when I jump in. But I want to just jump off what you all said for just a second, and especially with you here as the community manager.

But what's been really great is this throughline when we speak with devs and they talk about their relationship with their community. And specifically for a game that's been around for two decades, that relationship between you and your community must be, like, unbelievably vital to having this game around. Yeah?

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: It's everything. And I think, really, the last few years in particular have been especially shaped by making sure that we're meeting our players where they are, that we're listening to any time they're calling out obstacles that are getting in the way of their enjoyment of the game, and making sure that Azeroth is a place that is welcoming for everybody. Right?

It's one of the fun, wild things about WoW, is that it's a game that you could take a dozen people who would self-identify as die-hard WoW players, sit them around a table, and have them each describe what it is they love about the game and what they do in it.

And each of those dozen people could have a different answer, whether it's exploring, whether it's the story, whether it's getting together with 20 of their friends to slay a dragon, whether it's PvP combat and climbing to the top of the arena hierarchy, or whatever else. And so I think that chorus of voices-- sometimes dissonant and conflicting-- is, like, the beautiful tapestry that makes WoW WoW.

BETHANY STOUT: Mm-hmm.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And I know it makes the community management for WoW--

[LAUGHTER]

--truly challenging. So we're very grateful for Bethany helping navigate all of that.

BETHANY STOUT: Oh, we love it.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: But we owe everything to our players.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, yeah.

BETHANY STOUT: Yeah, we do.

MALIK PRINCE: Love that. Kudos to you, Bethany. Of course.

[LAUGHTER]

So now let's talk about me jumping in. Let's head into the present. For players-- since this is such about approachability for folks who are jumping in, for players who are looking to join the adventure in Azeroth, how do you suggest they get started?

Like, for someone who doesn't know anything about WoW and they're like, this is getting me into it, I'm really excited based off what you all are saying, what do I do when I go in?

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Well, so first off, you can check out the game completely for free initially. Now, there's no subscription required, no purchase required. Just go to worldofwarcraft.com and download it. You can jump into a pretty new starter experience that we created in recent years called Exile's Reach.

It's like, you level from 1 to 10 with a character class of your choosing and kind of learn the ropes-- learn how combat works, how the quest mechanics work, and a bit about the world that you're going to be in. And then from there, the journey continues if you purchase an expansion or subscribe.

But we've really done a lot over the last 20 years to ensure that 20 years of content is not 20 years of obstacles that you have to overcome to get to the latest, coolest thing. We've constantly streamlined the leveling experience.

So you're just going to play through a single expansion. When War Within comes out, Dragonflight, the current expansion, will be what you play through to level up and jump right into War Within. That will give you the power, give you an understanding of the mechanics.

You'll have a dragon companion that you'll earn very early on. So you can fly around the world as you explore it. And it's also going to kind of prepare you story-wise for what The War Within is going to bring.

HOLLY LONGDALE: It's an experience you can do over. So if you start with a Shaman or a Hunter, and you're learning the ropes, and you're like, hey-- and 30 minutes maybe, you're kind of into it. And you're like, eh, I want to try a Warrior or another-- we have so many classes--

[CHUCKLING]

--or a Mage. You can just start over. And it's really simple and really easy. There's this idea of my mom or dad's MMO-- like, once you make a commitment to a character, you're in it for potentially years. But we've made it really simple to just try and play the way you want to play with the character that's going to feel good to you.

BETHANY STOUT: We also have a Welcome to Azeroth bundle that'll help you jump right in. It gives you Dragonflight, our current expansion, and a character boost to go straight into the Dragonflight content. And it's just a great bundle to have in case you are interested-- and anybody else who's interested in trying it out.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. So I can kind of skip into the meaty stuff of it.

BETHANY STOUT: Yeah-- give you game time, too. So you don't have to worry about that.

MALIK PRINCE: Nice. Good.

[LAUGHTER]

Good. Good. I need to make sure I have some credentials over there.

BETHANY STOUT: Yes, yes. I'll help you out if you need me to.

MALIK PRINCE: Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say we need to do-- our action item after this is that we need to have a WoWCast/Xbox Podcast or whatever where I play WoW for the first time--

HOLLY LONGDALE: Oh, yes.

MALIK PRINCE: --and you all help me out, right?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Let's do it.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yep.

BETHANY STOUT: So fun.

HOLLY LONGDALE: 100%.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, let's do it. We got to get that on the books somehow.

BETHANY STOUT: Yeah, we should.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

BETHANY STOUT: I'll remember that.

MALIK PRINCE: There we go. Perfect. Everyone out there, stay tuned.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: OK. So Xbox Games Showcase just happened-- very exciting time. You all showed off a new trailer and made some new announcements. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was?

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah. Again, 20 years of WoW-- and what you saw in our cinematic was a celebration of the past 20 years-- journey of our story over the past 20 years in the cinematics that our team has created. So we have that. And also, we're announcing our launch date-- [BLOWS RASPBERRY]-- [LAUGHS]--

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: [VOCALIZING]

HOLLY LONGDALE: --for The War Within-- August 26.

MALIK PRINCE: There we go. There it is.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah. But you can get in there right now and help us out.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And this-- yeah. So in the lead up to War Within, there's already stuff going on in World of Warcraft at this very minute, as Xal'atath, the villain that you saw at the end of that cinematic, has kind of emerged into the world.

And her tendrils are branching throughout Azeroth, weaving dark plans that are going to threaten us. And it's exciting to have that build up to that launch moment that's not just something to sit back and passively wait for, but that you can jump in and play through.

And as Holly mentioned, the cinematic does a great job reflecting on a lot of the battles that champions of Azeroth have fought in years past but really setting this up as the beginning of a brand new arc.

We're calling it the Worldsoul Saga. It's a three-expansion trilogy that begins with War Within. And the threat Xal'atath poses is one to the very world that our heroes stand on. And it makes it a great time, even as we turn 20, to jump in for the first time.

Because you're not joining a story that's already been in flight for years and years, so you have a lot to catch up on. We're going to make sure you have everything you need to know. And you're going to be right there for all the twists, and turns, and surprises, and reveals right alongside the veterans.

MALIK PRINCE: Nice.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah, it's like newer existing-- we continue to say the last 20 years have led us to this moment. So this is a really great time to join us because it's a new journey. And also, I have to say about our villain, Xal'atath-- she's epically sinister. It's--

MALIK PRINCE: Don't you hate when that happens? You just have a sinister--

HOLLY LONGDALE: Awesome.

MALIK PRINCE: Like, come on. Be nice.

HOLLY LONGDALE: (LAUGHING) Yeah.

BETHANY STOUT: She's big I'm sorry.

[LAUGHTER]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: OK.

MALIK PRINCE: Open-- interpretation. That's a true villain, though--

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yes.

MALIK PRINCE: --have a little bit of dynamic-- it's not all black and white, those characters.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Exactly. Yep, yep, yep.

BETHANY STOUT: Can you tell us more about The War Within so that he can have more experience coming in?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: So aside from this being this kickoff to this epic narrative arc, a new expansion for World of Warcraft means new zones to explore. And in this case, War Within is more than just a turn of phrase.

We are literally going to be venturing beneath the surface of the world into these vast ancient spaces-- massive caverns full of magma, where the earthen dwarves work at bellows and vast forges; this beautiful place called Hallowfall Canyon, an huge underground space that really was designed to be an underground space where you don't feel like you're underground. Because it is so big, so vast.

And there's a massive crystal that's actually impaled in the ceiling that illuminates the whole place and gives it this other worldly space. But it's such a large area that the inhabitants use airships to get around within the underground caverns.

MALIK PRINCE: Wow.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And then if you go even deeper, you're going to go to Azj-Kahet, home of the ancient Nerubian empire, one of the most powerful civilizations in the World of Warcraft universe. And we're going to have to confront their queen and learn what they're all about. Spoilers, they're in league with Xal'atath.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

BETHANY STOUT: Of course.

MALIK PRINCE: [INAUDIBLE]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: A new expansion means new features. And we have a feature called Warbands, which is kind of embracing the fact that so many of our players these days, as Holly mentioned earlier, like to play multiple characters.

HOLLY LONGDALE: That's me.

BETHANY STOUT: Mm.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And when you switch from your Warrior to your Mage or to your Rogue, you don't necessarily want to have to redo all the stuff you did already to re-earn that reputation or access to some rewards. Let's make a lot of that account-wide.

Finally, I think one of the things I'm really excited about is, we have a feature called delves. Now, World of Warcraft has always had dungeons for five-player groups and raids for, like, 10- to 40-player groups.

Delves are this more bite-sized-- scaling solo to up to five players. So you can go in on your own. You can grab a couple of buddies and have this, like, 15-minute dynamic, replayable adventure that's kind of a whole new way to experience the World of Warcraft.

HOLLY LONGDALE: And for the first time ever, too, we have a lot of players that-- when you go into our experience for a new expansion, we do have dungeons. And the expectation is that you get in there with friends.

But for example, I'd like to play with my stepson and my husband. But now, for the first time, when you go into the dungeons in The War Within, we have AI followers, or characters that will play with you and alongside you. So you can experience the dungeon without the rigors of fighting other people to play with-- but yeah, really excited about that.

I'm the casual representative on the dev team. There's many of us. But I'm one of them. And Ion, he plays a bit differently.

BETHANY STOUT: Just a little bit.

MALIK PRINCE: I'm glad to hear about the AI teammates because I have no friends.

[LAUGHTER]

BETHANY STOUT: I'll be your friend.

HOLLY LONGDALE: You'll find them. You'll find them.

MALIK PRINCE: OK.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah. Yeah.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

HOLLY LONGDALE: He's friends with the AI followers.

[LAUGHTER]

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. The games and personality-- friends for life. Love that. Love that.

BETHANY STOUT: On top of everything they're saying that The War Within is coming with, there's an amazing feature in case you're afraid of certain types of creatures.

MALIK PRINCE: Ooh.

BETHANY STOUT: Can you tell us more about that? Because you were talking about the Nerubians, but not many people know what Nerubians are.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: Yeah. Yeah. So--

HOLLY LONGDALE: Spider people.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: So the Nerubians are a civilized, advanced arachnid race that has been-- their roots go back to the story of the Lich King, for those who remember the Warcraft III-- Frozen Throne real-time strategy game and others. But we're excited to really show players their home and their civilization in all its glory.

But I think we quickly realized, both based on community feedback and even some discussion within the development team, like, hey, so when these spiders were on my screen 15 years ago, and maybe they had way fewer polygons, and they were kind of fuzzy, it was one thing. But I don't know about a 2024 zone that's full of arachnids and arachnid people.

And so there were just concerns about arachnophobia and folks who even on the team felt a little bit uncomfortable working on the zone, working in our tools, working in our editor. And so we realized, like, this is going to be an issue that we need to do something about.

We always want to make sure that we're not putting up barriers that are going to stop people from feeling welcome, from feeling like they can join our community. Because really, the community and how vibrant and diverse it is at the core of World of Warcraft's strength.

And so we set out, did a bunch of research, talked to outside experts on arachnophobia, and explored different options. We tried removing the limbs from spiders.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: We tried changing their models. We tried changing the number of eyes they had. And they made some amount of difference. But what we actually found was that the single biggest impact on reducing the triggering reaction was actually just straight-up replacing them with crabs.

HOLLY LONGDALE: [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: Oh.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And--

HOLLY LONGDALE: Just--

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: --so we went-- we had--

HOLLY LONGDALE: --feels right.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: --a designer who went through and painstakingly matched every spider model to a similar-colored, similar-sized crab analog and just have some procedural tech that swaps the models out if you enable arachnophobia mode-- or crab mode, as some people call it.

[LAUGHTER]

MALIK PRINCE: Love that.

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And just want to make sure that everyone can enjoy the experience and be scared of the threat they pose and their villainy in the story but not the physical thing that's on your screen.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I love that. Up until this point, we've been talking a lot about approachability for new players like myself. But accessibility is something that is increasingly important in the industry today.

So in my head already, immediately a few things pop up, which, one is that-- we saw it a little bit in Grounded. They also had an arachnophobia mode. So shout out to that. I love that the diversity of your teams have allowed for this kind of thing to come up.

Because 2024-- our teams are so big. And there's different types of things that people have to consider. And so that's why it's so important to have diversity in your teams.

And also, I just love that we've just progressed to the point where we can think outside the box on what we would consider traditional accessibility and start to go to some of these more-- tackle some more of these maybe niche kind of accessibility considerations. So I love that.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah, our team is so passionate about it. And we do what we can. And we even experiment. Some members of our team took a character who was deaf in game-- that was a choice we made because we do the best we can to be representative of our player base and ourselves, in fact. And they created animations for her so she could sign her quest text, essentially, to the players.

So we're always looking for these opportunities to be able to really bring the diversity of our team and our community at large into the game in a variety of ways but also serve-- if we can make their lives better with something like crab mode, of course we're going to pursue it. And this is all this conversation with the community, and even our own development community about, let's do not just the right thing but the best thing we can.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. Yeah. It's like I always say. Like, maybe not everyone's going to take you up on utilizing those options, but for the people who do need it or require it, it means the most to them.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Yeah, yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: So it's super important. So I love that.

BETHANY STOUT: The Welcome to Azeroth bundle is available for a limited time right now. So if you want to jump into Dragonflight, into The War Within, please do so. Grab that bundle. And remind us when The War Within is going to be available.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Absolutely we can-- August 26.

MALIK PRINCE: August 26.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Don't miss it.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ION HAZZIKOSTAS: And things are kicking off right now. We just started our beta test a few days ago. And there are in-game, on the live World of Warcraft servers, prologue questlines that are going to keep ramping up in intensity over the course of the coming weeks until August 26 when War Within kicks off.

HOLLY LONGDALE: Big stuff happening. Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: All right.

BETHANY STOUT: It's so fun.

MALIK PRINCE: Holly and Ion, thank you so much again for joining the Xbox Podcast and making someone like me feel so welcome into the community. And I'm excited to jump in with everyone. So thank you so much. And Bethany, where can people keep up with you and everything going on with WoW?

BETHANY STOUT: Oh, please come to our YouTube at Warcraft to see WoWCast and talk about everything WoW as well as everything-- we post all of our socials there. So keep up to date on our YouTube, and Twitter, and everything. And then talk to me on the forums. I'll see you on the forums. So come say hi.

MALIK PRINCE: She's the community manager. If you want something in the game, she's the person to go to.

BETHANY STOUT: I will read your feedback. [LAUGHS]

MALIK PRINCE: There you go. Thank you so much, Bethany. And that just wraps up everything for today's World of Warcraft episode of The Official Xbox Podcast. But we've got lots of other special episodes for you to check out this week.

Here's your schedule that you're seeing right now. And we're looking forward to welcoming more guests and developers from around Xbox. And in the meantime, check out anything you may have missed earlier in the week at you know where-- youtube.com/xbox and on podcast services by searching for "Xbox Podcast."

Thank you so much for watching. We'll catch up with you next time.

[XBOX SOUND]