Nathan Fielder moved into Elizabeth Holmes’ house for 10 days before she went to jail, made a documentary about it, and somehow it’s rated R for graphic nudity. We have no idea what’s going on and we cannot wait.
Also: Luke watched all of Silo Season 3 instead of going for a swim (the pool wasn’t warm enough), Matt went to see the Jonas Brothers and actually enjoyed it (being supportive, he insists), and Xbox had another rough week -Ninja Theory is being shut down after Microsoft couldn’t sell them, and Halo is now Activision’s problem.
Luke goes full cinema hermit and catches two movies in one day — the 40th anniversary of Transformers: The Movie (verdict: fun but makes absolutely no sense, Hot Rod forever) and Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil (verdict: actually good, go see it, the padlock jokes are perfect). Meanwhile Matt is still playing Yoshi and the Mysterious Book with his daughter, who apparently blasted through the new Bluey game in a single weekend like some kind of toddler speedrunner.
Luke’s three VBs in not hungover this week, so prepare for some high energy discussion of the week’s going on!
This week Microsoft quietly kneecaps Xbox Cloud Gaming with new monthly hour limits, and they’re also keeping the tariff refunds. The future of gaming may not be financially viable?
Xbox’s limited-edition green throwback console sold out in under a minute this week, and is now sitting on eBay for $3,300 AUD. Reasonable? You be the judge. Actually no, we’ll be the judge. That’s ridiculous.
Luke’s back from the actual flu (not the fake flu, the ‘couldn’t get an achievement for 5 days’ flu), and Matt’s walking around post-spinal surgery like a champ, albeit with a physiotherapist who apparently learned her craft from a Bond villain
We’re back, baby! Matt had surgery, Luke got sick, got better, went back to work, and got sick again with something different. Classic Luke. Anyway, we pushed through because we missed you.
This week we wonder how Nolan made a $250 million movie that looks like The Odyssey, while Moana 2 cost the same amount and looks like… Moana 2.
Luke is back from hospital where he apparently has built up a full tolerance to ketamine (‘I have no idea what people are going on about’) and Matt is falling apart at the spine. It’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Somehow they still watched a bunch of movies and have opinions.
So Taylor Swift got married, Adam Sandler officiated (yes, really, no one knows why either), and you could buy ‘wedding memorabilia’ off a New York street artist - including a used ovulation test - for $25. We live in a society.
Then there’s the Xbox stuff, which is a lot. Like, a LOT. Thousands of jobs gone, Double Fine just… set free, id Software’s programmers shown the door (great for the legendary game engine people, obviously), and Obsidian pulled off Avowed 2 to go make Fallout instead. The good news: this is what everyone wanted since New Vegas. The bad news: it’s happening because Microsoft bought literally everything and then panicked.
Luke went to see Supergirl and came back mostly flat. His verdict: he laughed once.
Matt beat an innocent stranger to death with a rock this week. Listen to find out what the hell that’s about.
We get into the Xbox chaos (Ninja Theory gone, Elder Scrolls 6 still apparently coming in 2028 or possibly never, Tim Schafer potentially going indie), the Commodore flip phone that blocks social media and may or may not be purchased by Luke on the spot, why Ridley Scott doing Treasure Island feels weird, and the very depressing news that Europe can’t legally force publishers to keep game servers alive.
Luke spent many hours at the cinema this week, drinking his way through five movies, then got on a kick scooter and came straight to record a podcast.
Luke’s heroics at a pub meat raffle set the tone for this week’s episode. When a man grabs a woman’s arm on the dance floor he’ll be there, like a red bearded Batman.
An 83-year-old man’s retirement fund - a warehouse’s worth of vintage Star Wars LEGO he’s been sitting on since the ’90s - is stuck in the middle of one of the strangest internet dramas going right now. Bricks and Minifigs, Antifa, a YouTuber getting arrested in corporate lobbies, a police raid on an Airbnb to search for stolen LEGO, and a Patreon CEO publicly telling a franchise to get stuffed. Nuts.
Luke Skywalker blowing up Jabba’s sail barge is the greatest war crime in Star Wars history. Not the Death Star - a military target, the sail barge full of slaves and service workers. Luke knew exactly what he was doing and he chose evil. This is the kind of analysis you get here.
Somehow a conversation about the Grogu movie leads to the discovery that Neighbours made a zombie spin-off in 2014 and it’s available on YouTube. That’s the kind of episode this is.
Along the way: William Shatner publicly calling his own Magic: The Gathering card AI-generated garbage, Matt’s genuine distress over not being able to enjoy Stardew Valley, Luke owning 12 boxes of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 board game expansions and having opened exactly one, and a surprisingly interesting breakdown of why Spotify’s new fan-verification ticket system might actually dent concert scalping. Plus GTA 6 is still November, Destiny 2 is winding down, and Matt is running a local AI agent that reads obituaries so we don’t miss Geek of the Week candidates.
Luke slept 18 hours before this episode because he was up until 3 AM playing Forza Horizon 6. That’s the kind of dedication that costs nearly $200 when you factor in the premium upgrade. Meanwhile Matt was over here still playing Conan Exiles Enhanced on GeForce Now and trying to figure out mod management on a streaming service (spoiler: it’s a nightmare).
We also talked about:
Mixtape on Game Pass — Luke really wants you to play this one. Silverchair and Smashing Pumpkins on the soundtrack, little indie game about friends and memories. Just play it. XBOX is all caps again. Yes. Matt polled the audience (well, Microsoft did on Twitter). Everybody said all caps. Done. Some leaked photos of what’s supposedly the new Xbox Cloud Gaming controller. Luke called bullshit immediately and we stand by that. Uwe Boll is making 23 Years Later: The Castle of the Dead because Paul W. S. Anderson is making a House of the Dead movie and Uwe cannot let that stand. God bless him. James Bond casting has started. Denis Villeneuve directing. Timothy Dalton deserved better. Luke nominated himself and Rahul. Avatar 4 and 5 are now ‘very much uncertain.’ The third one lost money compared to the first one when you adjust for inflation. James Cameron needs to figure out how to make these for less. The Rehearsal season 2 is good. The episode where Nathan Fielder is a baby is… a thing that exists. Matt checked Pornhub live on the show and immediately regretted it. AI… stuff. Moving on. Plus Would I Lie to You, Fallout 5 (coming in the 2030s, don’t hold your breath), Obsidian getting roasted by Bethesda after New Vegas, scam phone calls being just normal now — it’s all in there.
Nicolas Cage is playing Spider-Man in a black-and-white 1950s noir series that’s out at the end of this month, and somehow that’s not even the wildest thing discussed this week.
Asha Sharma quietly killed Xbox’s Copilot integration, an AI assistant that was officially announced as recently as March. Luke is so relieved he can barely contain it. Between that, the price cuts, and the achievement system overhaul, we try to work out whether she’s the real deal or if Microsoft just had a drawer full of approved changes waiting for someone new to take credit.
Luke left a Rabbitohs game at halftime (they were up 24-0, which apparently is suspicious rather than reassuring) to record this, so you’re welcome. The big Xbox news: Game Pass is cheaper now, but Call of Duty won’t be day one anymore because apparently people were actually buying it and Microsoft noticed the gap in their wallet. Project Helix will be a real Xbox you can buy — not just a chip inside someone else’s handheld — though the ‘available as’ phrasing has Matt convinced ASUS will also be selling one. The Black Flag remaster looks sick in motion even if some of the screenshots are weirdly picked. Conan Exiles is getting a free UE5 glow-up on PC, which interrupted Matt’s current Dune Awakening era where he basically just pops in every few days to top up his shields. In other news: the guy who leaked the new Avatar movie is in serious trouble in Singapore (Luke’s taxi driver once warned him not to pick up a leaf from the ground there, so yeah, that tracks). Tim Cook is out at Apple. And somehow they ended up talking about a 1994 Super Nintendo game that was originally going to be a Hellraiser shooter. As you do.
If you’ve ever emailed a movie to someone, write in and let us know: podcast@multiplenerdgasm.com
Artemis 2 is back on Earth after 9 days in space, and the crew broke records. Elsewhere: Amazon is having a rough week, RAM and SSD prices are spiking, Xbox Achievements are getting a long-overdue update and Karl Jobst has filed a new defamation lawsuit against Billy Mitchell. All that and more this week on (probably) your favourite podcast!
Matt watched Project Hail Mary, so if you were waiting for his review the time has come. Warning - we do talk spoilers but we give you plenty of warning!
It’s that special time of year when Matt and Jenna get to go to PAX East and Luke gets to be jealous. He’ll have his revenge in October at PAX Aus, and then it’ll be their turn to cry.
Well we know what the Firefly news is and one of us isn’t happy about it.
