102: LET'S TALK ABOUT PUDDLES AGAIN!

Sony is skipping the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show next year. This is the first time PlayStation won't have a presence at the event since it began 24 years ago. On this week's episode of the GamesBeat Decides podcast, hosts Jeffrey Grubb and Mike Minotti dig into this news. What does it mean for Sony? What does it mean for E3? We know*, but you'll have to listen to find out. (*we don't actually know.)

The Decides crew also talk about Tetris Effect, Hitman, and not playing Red Dead Redemption 2. In addition, Jeff -- GamesBeat's PC gaming editor -- has actually seen ray tracing working in a game. He paired Battlefield V with the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti and the latest version of Windows 10. That combination enabled him to try out the latest lighting technology. The result? Some really good looking puddles. That's right. It's 2018, and we're talking about puddles in a video game again. 

Join us for this week's show, and don't hesitate to tell us what your favorite puddle in a game is by tweeting @GBDecides. 

Here’s everything we talk about:
Games
Mike: 

Spyro collection
Fallout 76
Tetris Effect
Jeff:
Tetris Effect
Battlefield V/RTX
Hitman 2
News
PlayStation skips E3
PlayStation's 5th anniversary
86.1 million hardware units shipped
777.9 million software units
X018
Crackdown 3 comes February 15
Xbox acquires Obsidian and InXile
Sunset Overdrive comes to PC
Phil Spencer promises to fix Microsoft Store for PC games
Spencer doesn’t think cloud will ever fully replace dedicated hardware
Xbox will still make powerful hardware
Nintendo wins $12 million lawsuit against couple that hosted illegal ROMs
Nintendo of Russia's president is a nightmare human
Soon, everything will be THQ Nordic
Telltale enters bankruptcy
Xbox One gets keyboard and mouse support
Play the outro music. No, the other outro music!