Activision Takes Over Halo, Xbox Fires 268 - Kinda Funny Games Daily 09.22.26

36:22Blessing Adeoye Jr.:development and plans for call of duty i just kind of concerned i was like they should just give it to the side hammer ijn has a quote over here from the president of activision uh rob koshdick uh quote we're thrilled to welcome halo rare in the world's edge to activision it's an honor and responsibility that we do not take lightly these teams and their games have inspired fans around the world for decades for halo our goal is clear make the greatest halo game ever worthy of its universe and legacy while staying true to what made players love it in the first place. It's a bold ambition one that this franchise deserves.

36:57We have already begun assembling a purpose built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community. Can we jump to Rare for a sec? To the world edge of Rare teams, we can't wait to get to work together. Yeah, go ahead. So with Rare. Yep. I have two immediate things pop off in my head of Activision with Rare. Three things, actually. One fun fact and two things. Fun fact, Activision almost bought Rare back in the day. When Microsoft got it and Nintendo fucked up. Can you believe Nintendo?

37:30Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Nintendo really fucked up, man. Can you fucking believe that? Yeah, that's crazy. Rare was like, yo, you can buy us. Nintendo said no. And Rare had 51. They're like, yo, do you want to buy the rest? Nintendo's like, nah. It's a Rare went to Microsoft. But Activision was in the bidding for that. so it all happened now but fun fact aside uh looking at it is like all right activision why did they put rare under activision is it because sea of thieves is a live service game you said it live service that's why or is it because they have crash bandicoot spyro and they want to start getting like like activision is the creator of the 3d platformers that um microsoft owns banjos owned somewhere in there man wouldn't that be nice five years ago we just yeah i know we all said yeah we all tiptoed around it we celebrated hey it's nice that phil and the team are being so good at these people letting them make whatever they want but in the back of our minds we always said just tell them to make what we want right and so yeah i don't know tim that that was a project five years ago that i wanted now is that who rare is still though like i look at rare as the sea of thieves studio now 100 no rare still has the fun in it yeah they might be known as the sea of thieves team because that team has done a fantastic job.

38:44Don't get me wrong. That is a solid game. But there is still in the heart of Rare that fun whimsy that we all want, that dream of a crash, a banjo, a conquer. That is still deep inside of Rare, and it will always be in there.

38:57Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Are you saying that about the people, or are you saying that about the studio? The studio, the people in that team right now, if you were to convince them and they were on board, they could make it. I believe in that. I hope, man. I don't think that leaves you I just think it's been so long since we've gotten that version of Rare and I think out of all the IPs Rare would love to work with a Banjo-Kazooie because that is their history it'd be tough for me to look at them and go make a Spyro or a Crash I think they could do it but do any of the parties involved want them to make a Spyro or Crash game or is it keep making Sea of Thieves because Sea of Thieves is a currently successful product under Phil's regime they would have done that if they wanted to like period it's like well those those are also two things that sell insane amounts of copies also a spyro game is being made a spyro game is already being made yeah and i would look at that team toys for toys for rob right toys for rob and go hey let's just keep licensing these out to them yeah but they also but plus microsoft owned them that is true they didn't need to do that but what the fuck it's so funny man um all right y 'all i want to keep getting into more of this and there's a ton of super chats that I want to get to, but we're going to do that after a quick word from our sponsors.

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44:40Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment from KQED. Every week, Snap drops you inside someone's biggest decision. The kind of decision you can only make once. with everything on the line. What do you believe? What do you want? And what would you risk to get it? Find out. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.

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45:25Blessing Adeoye Jr.:All the features of big wireless service for half the cost. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply. Standard rate applies at month 13. See visible.com for planned features and network management details. Greg, where do you want to go from here? Do you want to jump down to Bethesda? Do you want to get in some super chats? I could go either way, and we have still a lot of time. Oh, yeah. I really want to just have the conversation of, is this all just done? And I know we touched on it. I'm not saying we haven't mentioned this, but we do need to talk about, are we just bundling everything for the garage sale?

45:58Well, that's the thing is, you know,

45:59Blessing Adeoye Jr.:the main of reason in the super chat says Xbox under Phil was a buffet, a wide variety of choices, and they'd hope you'd try something new. Xbox under Asha wants a menu of 10 high quality items. And to that, I say, yeah, and these high quality items are for Saudi Arabia or for Elon Musk or for whoever has enough money. Amazon, Paramount, whoever has enough money to go wants to come sniff around by xbox oh you got playground it's that's what together for fourths and fable yeah what do we what does that look it's hard for me to speculate uh confidently about what what do these things mean as far as halo four years from now like what's gonna happen it's like well what's gonna happen somebody's gonna buy xbox and then this shit's gonna all fall apart anyway here's my thing is i my prediction on this is i don't think someone will buy xbox i think xbox will sell these brands and these companies and these ips off to people and get down to a very slim xbox yeah it's just doing the mobile shit and just doing call of duty or something like that yeah i like to not think of that maybe i'm just holding on tight to like that's not going to happen i think that is a strong reality that we could be living in and a great topic of conversation i do think on my side of things of like this is what needs to happen under asha's reign right now right if like we talked about this five years ago when they purchased Activision, Blizzard, King, Bethesda, and more of this is a lot.

47:20This is unmanageable. You need to now start to put the right pieces and leaders together, right? And here is the exact moment that we're looking for of like, hey, under Xbox Game Studios, there was 23 different game development teams. That was too many for one person at the very top to overlook and make sure they were all making the right decisions. Let's move them and put them in the pieces where they need to be, right? And the moves that I'm seeing now with Halo going underneath Activision, rare live service, where they are, what Activision has IP-wise, that's the right call. World's Edge, I think, is a different conversation.

47:54Someone needs to take control of that RTS team and figure out where it's going. But when I read the moves and the alignments, it all feels right business-wise to say, let's get back on track to where we need to be with the right leadership and decision-making under that. But, yeah, I mean, the reality then could just be sold off. So the selling it conversation, it's very interesting because on paper when I look at this news and when you look at so much of the news recently in terms of the restructurings and in terms of the studio closures and just the movement within the teams that Xbox has underneath their umbrella that has many different prongs at this point with the Bethesda Activision and etc.

48:34The thing that doesn't add up to me if they're going to try to sell is their pivot from being multi-console. that they've been doing the last couple years or last year to the insistence on we're going to have helix where it's going to be a console we're pushing exclusives we're doing all of that because if they're trying to sell the goal will just be be as profitable as possible to make as much money and to have the ip be as valuable as possible so to me this shows they're not their goal is not to sell their goal is to sell the box sell the helix because they do believe in that long term making them the money and them being able to be a market leader I find that insane to believe like I don't believe in that future for them but do you follow me on that?

49:19Oh 100 % I think it's but it's you know the elephant in the room is the vampire in the room and it's Sati Nadella right and so it is that Phil you ain't getting it done and the Xbox isn't profitable and isn't sustainable I'm bringing in Asha. Asha shows up and Asha gets all this box of you know misfit toys and puzzle pieces she's got to try to put together into a strategy and I think again And I firmly believe the ship had sailed on Helix. I think if Asha could have come in before they ever talked about that, before that was ever the plan, they would have drastically changed whatever that plan would have been.

49:49And maybe they've already drastically changed whatever Helix was going to be, but I don't think you have the ability to. So I think you have to come in, play with the pieces you have, and start building your chessboard. And so I think that's what they've done here in this last-ditch effort and hope to do it. But I'm with you. There's no possible way that strategy can be successful. I just don't believe it for a second that there's any chance Xbox is going to be able to win back the goodwill they've squandered. And I'm not even talking about layoffs. I'm talking about mid-games and consoles that, why did I pay for this, and now in a more expensive market yet.

50:21You can't do that. And so I think when you fail there, then you have everything here pre-built. And I think that's where we're at. These bundles all have a one-strike policy. Coalition has a one-strike policy on the game they're about to put out that is behind the eight ball because it's only coming to Xbox. like that's the reality here because again it as asha has said it's time to be sustainable that is what we're trying to do here and when you have games and companies that are going to lose money you cut those fucking games yeah and you know the the going back to the question of like it is it too late why is it too late i think it's because of what you're just saying there of let's talk about about when xbox series x and s were first coming out and we're talking about a similar-ish lineup of games that we were looking at coming out and those kind of being the things of like why you would buy an Xbox series over a PlayStation 5 or even in addition to or just in general by an Xbox like why would you buy this hardware after the Xbox One generation and then those games either came out or didn't come out or were just whatever there was a couple wins there's a bunch of Forzas that are 10 out of 10 some of the best games ever made games you're winning video games right and now we're just kind of looking at the reset down the path and with all this news it's like minimum three years away right like there's just no way that these games are coming sooner than that there's just no way so realistically for five years we're looking at the helix when's that coming realistically as early as next year i think as late as the year after that why would people buy it for the promise of those things yeah to spell it out right of like Why is it too late?

51:58It's because they don't even have enough rope to hang themselves. Sati and Nadella and Microsoft are not going to wait. Okay, well, the Helix is out and it's not selling well, but it's because we don't have games, so give me three more years. At some point, they're going to be like, we just don't fucking care. Hopefully, we've already lost our shirt on AI. This shit sucks, too. We're cutting and running. It's too late because the rebuilding and the refocusing is the same conversation we've had for the past decade about the dominoes. And if we weren't going to believe in Phil Spencer's vision, this is the vision that should have superseded and been there before Phil's.

52:34The commitment to consoles and exclusives, it would have been a bold thing to call out 10 years ago, five years ago. Hey, no, we're not going anywhere. If you want our games, come here. We've bought them all. You're only getting our games on this thing. Bam, boom. That's what we're doing. To do it now, the jig's already up, and the industry's already in a different place, and we've already moved, and the message is so jumbled. it's like who's telling someone to go buy an xbox right now who's gonna say that change my i mean it's a delicate dance tim the problem was you had two options become the world's largest video game publisher and put it everywhere or continue to fight in the console space and right now in the console space you are losing by a lot and you are not going to win the goodwill back we've gone two generations two full generations of playstation eating your lunch taking your lunch money off.

53:21We have great games over here. We have great hardware that is just as strong, if not stronger than the Xbox. What is the point of coming over to Team Green and putting your money over there if you know that the games would release a year later over on PlayStation? You have 10 of the best IPs around with Uncharted Last of Us. Last of Us. All these games, right? It's like, why? We talk about this still to this day. If anybody's out there going to buy a console, they're going to lean over to the PlayStation side. three to one, if not more, it is impossible to win this fight. I don't see why they just didn't choose to become the world's largest publisher and call that a day right there.

54:00And either make an insane amount of money doing that or sell it and make an insane amount of money and not need to worry about it and let someone else, you know, it's like it was right there. They just didn't want to give up the consoles. They just didn't want it. Here we are. They just did not want to give up this console for some.

54:16Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Mike, I'm curious. Why do you think they don't want to give up the consoles? I don't know, bless. I don't know if it's a business strategy from Microsoft as a whole of wanting to still hold on to being in the living room, right? PCs are now everywhere. Their services are totally changed from what they started as Microsoft to where we are now, right? And so it is odd. Do they still see themselves as we can be that one device in every person's living room? And does that matter? We've gone to streaming. The televisions are what we all pretty much get every app and device on anyways, right? Like you don't really need an Xbox.

54:48and so it is odd it does feel like they still believe that that is the path and that is the

54:52Blessing Adeoye Jr.:only way what does that do for you as a fan because i feel like i've heard it in the last five years of so many xbox fans being like no we want exclusives like no three years ago when they announced that all the games were going to come out to playstation what did i say why would i ever buy an xbox again right and i still stand to that of i buy the box because i like the branding i I love that I have, you know, had 10 plus years of buying digital downloads and my saves are tied to that. My life is tied to that. But in reality, I'm perfectly content with just my PlayStation. I like exactly where I'm at.

55:25Xbox has shown that a number of their games are still coming out over on that platform, right? And so having this wishy-washy half in, half out, hey, some of these games are going to be Xbox exclusives. Most of them aren't. Still doesn't make me go, I got to have this Helix day one, right? I'm still right now going, well, if I buy the PS6, I'm going to get most of these games because they're going to come over there. And right now, if they land flat on their face, they are going to come to PS6 because this isn't going to work, right? And it all started with Call of Duty being tied up in legal stuff, right?

55:56If Call of Duty could have gone fully exclusive, that would have been a pressure point of, hey, you have to leave the PlayStation, right? Bethesda, like I said, was Starfield. If that was a game of a generation, the Skyrim of this era of like, that's another pressure point. You got to be over there, right? There's a number of things where it's like they didn't apply the pressure slash they couldn't put the pressure to make all of us go, I really like those games over on Xbox. I might have to start considering leaving the PlayStation. And a lot of those games aren't even Xbox, true Xbox titles like a Halo or Forza, right?

56:28It is Activision Blizzard King. It is Bethesda games. And so, unfortunately, they never put the pressure on like they needed to to deliver that feeling of I have to leave a PlayStation now.

56:38Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Where do you sit now as far as what direction they should take? Is them going exclusive something that now you feel like, all right, I like this as a fan? Or are you in a place where it's like, no, just put your games everywhere? As a fan, yeah, right? If I'm going to continue to justify this hardware, especially the sale of Project Helix, right? When we talk about this idea of being a dual boot box, if that's still the goal, it is doing something different than my PlayStation. It is giving me more options, right? It is kind of becoming that dream of a PC in the living room that can do everything and anything, right?

57:11I'm still on board with that vision. And the only way to do that is to have killer games and promise that they're going to be exclusive. Or, you know, day one on PC as well, which I still like that strategy. But we're talking about a lot of mid-games that are coming to other platforms still. And it's like, I'd rather have the best box with the 10 best games over the past two decades. And them proving that they're going to stick to that, right? PlayStation has doubled down on we're going to come only on our consoles because we know you have to come buy this box. And guess what? I'm going to because I'm not going to miss those 10 great games.

57:45Yeah, it's very interesting. I feel like to answer the question you asked Mike, but my take on it is I think that they should have a while ago. But I think that now specifically they should go. We're going to be the biggest publisher in the world. I also do not think they should stop making hardware. I think that's something that gets lost when I have these conversations a lot is I think that their hardware just should not be their main focus and their main push. They should be in support of their games being able to be bought and played in as many places as possible. But Game Pass does make them money.

58:14They need that subscription service. I don't think that they should get rid of that because they have it. Maybe they should never have had it. But, like, I'm talking about where they're at now of just, like, they're making revenue from that stuff. So having a box that you put out there that is an option for people to buy if they wanted to be able to get Game Pass in their living room and to be able to buy those games if they're not worried about the PlayStation ecosystem and all of that stuff. I think of it like the Surface Books. I think about it of just Windows on PCs compared to like how Microsoft sells Windows.

58:43Like it doesn't fucking matter where you're getting your Windows. More people are using it on things that are not Microsoft. It's from Alienware. It's from Dell. It's from HP. It's from, you know, the list goes on and on and on. It's like still make the things, but treat it like the Surface laptops. Treat it like the Surface line entirely of just it is an option for people. We are not. And we're going to push it. We're going to market it because we own it and we do make money. And there is the fact that they don't need to split the sales on stores and all of that stuff. So they're making more money per download and sale of their games on their own system.

59:16So, yes, there's a lot of reasons why they should still have a box. I just don't think that having a box that they're pushing to compete and doing exclusives and all that stuff is going to help them. I think that they lost that game. They just lost. And the further they go down that path, the more teams are going to get closed because the games are simply not going to be able to make the money that they need to or they could had they just simply done the other version. Publish it everywhere. Make the streaming puck. Put Game Pass on every TV, every streaming device and say, hey, we got great games.

59:48Day one releases. is a catalog of 200 plus you pay me$20 a month let's see how many people jump on that and stick with that right the console exclusives yeah as a diehard fan and as someone who wants to buy the box they have to all be exclusive bless but unfortunately that is going to take them down a path where they're going to lose another generation and it's not going to be worth it

1:00:07Blessing Adeoye Jr.:you feel like that's good that's going to lose them to the helix generation if they go all exclusive yeah i mean especially at the start right now like at this moment fable and other games being wishy-washy of like where they where aren't they it's like everything after when she walked in on day one it should have been everything will be exclusive plain and simple you're buying the box come here now and then you announce all these great games kojima's coming to town we got activision blizzard with some great lineup of games everything is exclusive that's how you put the pressure down if we if we get to let's say helix comes out 2028 fall 2028 and they do push the button and go everything's exclusive except for call of duty because legally we cannot make that exclusive but everything else is exclusive and in those first couple years we get alder scroll 6 you get fizzin you get a brand new halo from call of duty studios you get i don't know man a banjo because whatever other big thing you can imagine from xbox does that push the needle i think that's a great start bless but i don't think it pushes the needle of i brought it up before Xbox's next Xbox has to be cheaper than PlayStation by a country mile for people to say I'm going to leave my PlayStation catalog I'm going to leave the PS6 behind this thing has to be priced as a Xbox Series S at this point to be like yeah it's going to be your secondary console but also maybe it will become your number one console because it's so cheap and has so many great exclusives for you to want to leave that but I don't think we're in that situation and I think the biggest thing is the money for the sponsor the big issue there I think is you're facing competition from two places, your competitor, PlayStation, but also your audience's wallet.

1:01:43I think that the Helix is going to come at an insane price because it has to. It simply has to. If it's going to be as good as it needs to be, it's going to be minimum$1 ,200. And I think that is minimum that we're talking about. I think it's going to be significantly more than that. And then I'm not saying that PlayStation is going to be cheaper. In fact, I do think that PlayStation will probably end up being more than the Helix costs, but I don't think that matters. Because the PS5 is still out there. The PS5 Pro is still out there. And PlayStation Studios is going to be making PS5 games for years.

1:02:15They're not going to be PS6 exclusive games any time that Helix being relatively competitive is the relevant conversation point, right? By the time we get there. The jigs up. Thousand percent. I mean, I'm getting to pull it up, right? But the X20 version of the Xbox Ally X, right? And the prices on these when it's just, what are we talking about? You know what I mean? Like how much a Helix is going to cost when we get there? And like, you know, to your question of like, well, what if it has Fizzit? And what if it has other skills? Like, those are big ifs. But I mean, like, you're going to see, I think even with the PlayStation 6 at launch, you're going to see a dramatic number of gamers go, I'm good for now.

1:02:55i'll wait for i'll let's hopefully the price comes down let's get there these games look awesome but i am having fun of my current gen hardware i'm not going to make that leap right now and put that kind of investment that kind of those thousands of dollars down yeah i wanted to ask

1:03:09Blessing Adeoye Jr.:those questions because i feel like those are the questions that our audience often throws at us as far as when we're doing the duma rism thing of well they can't go exclusive because they're going to lose money i think people often are trying to drill into why we feel that way so i agree bless i just wanted to get that out going full exclusive is the only route you're going to go if you're going to keep making a console, right? You have to start making a reason why all of us at this table and everyone listening, watching have to buy these consoles. And of course that starts with great games, but they have to be exclusive.

1:03:36If this game is going to come out to PlayStation a year later, I'm not jumping ship, right? It has to be a real reason of me going I'm never going to play this next Kojima game that I can't do that, right? I'm never going to play the next Bethesda title. I can't miss that, right? There's so much love and admiration from this community for these games that, like, again, I'll say it one more time, you have to apply the pressure. You have to make Greg Miller go, am I really going to make this decision right now? And, of course, this past generation, Xbox hasn't made you make that decision. They've let you get away with buying games over on PlayStation a year later.

1:04:13They've put out mid-titles that have not been. They've let you just be like, oh, that's an okay game, but I don't need. I have to play it. Too many times where you've gone, I don't need to play that, or I'll catch that on sale a couple years later. They're like, it's no big deal to me. You have to have great titles to push the box. And on top of that, they have to be exclusive. And even if you have those things, it's not a foolproof plan. Look at the Wii U. Like, there's no more dedicated audience to exclusives than Nintendo and Nintendo gamers. And they put out Mario Kart A. They put out Smash Brothers for Wii U.

1:04:42They put out Mario 3D World. The list goes on and on and on. And you know it because you all played them on the Switch. But on the Wii U, the Wii U sold 13 million units total. that meant that no matter what happens a game can only sell 13 million units only that's a lot i get that but like none came close what mario kart 8 was like i think 8 million yeah which is insane when you think attachment rate no one else got it like that but they did and that's the there's just sheer numbers to this all i said someone in the chat be like oh skyrim sold 66 million copies it's like yeah think of how many consoles it was able to do that to right and of course add in pc and yes i understand that xbox has the pc side of things but we look at those numbers now we see them and it's like they're not boosting the xbox uh published games ability to sell these 10 15 million copies for these giant triple a dare i say quadruple a games that they're pushing forward again we are talking about the company that first coined the triple a or quadruple a uh with uh perfect dark and look where we're at with that but um yeah it's just the breath of the wild sold more copies than switches existed in its first week you know what i mean that's a level of just crazy success we're not getting that from elder scrolls six we're just not and that's what we're talking about is numbers of these consoles how many helixes even if everything goes perfectly how many can they sell if everyone was so jazzed about that lineup that you just presented well two years in at a $1 ,200,$1 ,300 price point if you're lucky, fingers crossed it's like, what's that going to look like?

1:06:24Not enough. Albino MyEasy says, Fizzit isn't Death Stranding 3, Fizzit is Metal Gear Solid 6 same thing with Bethesda, people won't show up for Starfield, they will show up for Elder Scrolls will they show up on top of it being an$80 game they have to pay$1 ,200,$1 ,300 probably$1 ,500 for whatever this box is or will they play it on whatever lower settings on their pc where they can just buy the game and go like that's the other thing we're missing here right where it's like you're when you start dialing into that first wave of console launch you talk about the game launches and okay cool the hardest of the hardcore are the ones who go and buy it right that are there that's why you don't put out your biggest game as a launch exclusive most of the time right you want to install base to your point i mean for me as an old person it's always god of war right why when i landed at ign i had a playstation 3 on my desk but guess what god of war was on playstation 2 months later because they were like we want the fucking numbers of the playstation 2 on this thing right it's this argument of like people are going to show up for those games sure yeah and let i even if they cut it off from pc which they're not going to well let's just say it was exclusive to xbox like not in the droves to make any of this math math like the math doesn't fucking math on research development the law the burn rate for these studios and how long they've had them how long you've been waiting for these games like it just doesn't work that way man and so it is the idea that now okay we're talking about the hardcore who will buy the system for it well in the reality where it will be on pc they're gonna put it on pc they're gonna buy it on pc the p like all of us but even that's not a solution because pcs are prohibitively expensive now yeah but i mean i think so many people are gonna coast on what they have already cool but like do the new triple a games play on those things even on low settings i bet they do experience i bet they do well i mean quality that's always either beholder or whatever i mean i know but then that's the whole thing though if it's like if they're coming out people aren't enjoying the products it's like that's but i see i think i think then we get into a different conversation with the old lauren landing and us about playstation vr and vr right if it's good enough i think there will be enough of a chilling effect at the prices of new consoles pcs graphics cards etc are we living this living nightmare where so many people are gonna be like yeah it doesn't look that great but it's good enough i'm playing the game and i'm enjoying it Yeah, I'm not getting the usual or what we would call the usual bells and whistles now of 8K, yada, blah, blah, blah.

1:08:41And don't get me wrong. There'll be plenty of criticism how it looks. But it will run and it will play and people will be like, that's better than$2 ,000. That's a Nintendo argument. That is not a PC argument. I don't see that narrative shifting ever. Oh, dude. I think I definitely do. Because I think the solution there is the cloud streaming stuff. But everyone's up in arms and hating that. But that is the future. That is the thing that's going to solve. is like we're at a brand new we're in a brand new world of how much everything fucking costs and how much it sucks to be a consumer slash a video game fan right now when it comes to your wallet and i think a lot of people are going to come off their high horses and i also think the pc market has expanded beyond beyond just being the typical master race max settings yada yada yada i think they're me and mike are there right and we're not those people yeah i think most of the casual pc audience is just as long as it's good enough and it's playing right like we are getting priced out of the newest GPUs, all the bells and whistles.

1:09:32There's definitely going to be a tip. I agree with Greg. I'm like, there's going to be a moment here where it's like, it's good enough. I'm happy, right? I think of sad boy, Sean, who's running the oldest graphics card, right? And he's just playing the game and he looks at me and goes, it runs and I'm having fun. Yeah, I would love to upgrade. I want to be that tech guy, Tim. We all want that. But I think a lot more people are coming to realization of like rent, groceries, life, right? It's like all of this is adding up to that's good enough. I'm happy. i i feel the argument and i agree with the sentiment of it i just don't think that the reality is there to back that up where because of what we're talking about of these games being bigger and push we're talking about next gen games it's like i don't believe or trust in these developers to be able to make it run at these lower and lower things because that's not where games that games are getting bigger and ballooning more and more and if we get any evidence against that i'd feel very differently but yeah like there are a ton of indie darlings and there are a ton of great games that like function fine at where we're at which are three is about to come out i'm sure that's gonna be highly optimized because cd project red fucking cares about optimizing and they look at things like the steam deck as an opportunity for them and guess what their games then sell upwards of 80 million copies or whatever it is but that requires a level of fucks to give about making sure that it runs on these uh lower end hardware and i just don't have any faith in any of the teams we're talking about doing bethesda are you kidding me no way but i i guess my the other pushback i would have is like sure next gen blah blah blah but i i just i we're at that point where it's like how much better can video games be and i know they can always be better there can always be more shit i'm not like fucking being stupid but i'm like i don't know if it's gonna be so i don't think it's gonna be such a jump from an xbox one to an xbox helix where it's like we couldn't fucking do it xbox series x2 helix you know what i mean we couldn't fucking do it it runs like shit everywhere else like i mean starfield runs great on my ROG, right?

1:11:22And I understand, like, I'm talking about an old game, but even, like, Blood of Dawnwalker ran great on my ROG. Aldersgate 3 didn't run on a Series S. Sure. But, I mean, Series S sucks ass, you know what I mean? That's what the S is for. Sucking ass. I don't like it. I find it.

1:11:39Yeah, I want it clear that that is the future I want. I want all these people acting like Nintendo. Let's just put out good games, like, amazing games that run well enough and, like, at least now we're caught up in it's 4k and all that stuff playstation do that shit let me get a trilogy of uncharted games on one console that'd be awesome pretty sick we're seeing a a new wave of games especially with the friend slap genre of people just want cheap affordable games and it's just good enough but it's fun at its core right and like people are kind of willing to throw away the super high-end ultra it's got to look perfect and yeah there's an art audience for that but like we're seeing these games like mecha chameleon so seven million copies in like seven days and it looks like shit you know what i mean like people just want to have fun that's what they're looking for yeah i need to take a call about my house exploding no i can i can take over if you want

1:12:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:um uh did we have more about uh bethesda i did we even talk about it yeah yeah i mean do you want to talk about it yeah i'd like you to go point by point but you can start with bethesda let's start with bethesda bethesda will expand its remit to include obsidian which will continue his current projects including grounded as well as the new fallout project main collaboration with bethesda game studios of course he talked about obsidian working on fallout a few weeks ago a couple months ago now uh greg yeah what does this mean to you i mean it's it's a dark hallway to look down right we're like what does it mean i don't really know the one hand awesome be more together since yes i am doing me wrong i love obsidian as a studio and their creativity but you need to be a fallout studio so if you're going to be the fallout studio yes the fallout guys should be there and you should be working as one team yada yada yada right hopefully that strengthens the fallout that obsidian is making the flip side of course is whenever you do something like this we have redundancies you know what i mean like is obsidian like the one thing i think is interesting right where they keep you like bethesda will expand its remit to include first off just say you know responses they're going to oversee that business wars you know expanding their reach but it's more the idea of like cool so is obsidian going to become bethesda i don't know obsidian's base but is it going to become bethesda la something yeah right whatever it is no you don't do that because what i think it's just gonna be like machine games or machine games isn't called bethesda machine yeah sure fair enough okay fair enough but it's but as you start to absorb these companies i start to worry about what is the identity and what about their hr person is their hr person going to be eliminated because you have your own hr person and like i don't know how HR people fucking work in the Microsoft Xbox world.

1:14:14You know what I mean? Like, and that's, but that's what I'm talking about of a dark hallway. I'm just like, I don't know what the other end of it, like them working and collaborating on the game. Sure. Why not? Okay. Again, to this argument of like, everybody come out here. We're putting you all in the same teams. And then the three worst teams are going to sell. You know what I mean? I'm like, we're going to bundle. Not that they're going to bundle up. Yeah. Fallout. If you have the fallout IP, you're going to be on this. We're going to keep that forever. You are on the Xbox brand until they are officially like, no, we're done with everything.

1:14:40Get it out of here. Yeah. I mean, I look at it as like, we've talked about it with Asha Sharma of so many layers of red tape, so many management layers to talk to and try to get past, right? This is very much of like, Hey, you're making a fallout game, right? And we don't need you to be calling Matt booty or myself to get answers from Todd Howard. Like you are now underneath them. They're going to talk with you directly. Todd's going to have check-ins with you instead of us checking in with you. They're checking in with Todd. this seems business-wise the right call just merging the game with the right area right i'm more interested of like do they go to the creation engine then are they using something different where do we put this team now a team that has been known to be off on their own they haven't made fallout new vegas for decades right it's like this team has been doing their own thing they've been doing their own style does that mean they've come now and like todd's like hey really want this to feel like all my other games it's got to be here it's a bigger conversation

1:15:35Blessing Adeoye Jr.:that might be a whole other podcast but there is the conversation of what is the size and scope of this fallout is it just outer worlds 3 but it's actually you cross out outer worlds 3 and you put fallout new vegas 2 on it and it runs in the exact same engine as is outer worlds because if you're trying to get efficient and put out a game that's going to be out in the early years of the xbox helix that's how you do it right if you try and transition obsidian to the bethesda engine and make it feel like a fallout first of all do you even want to feel like a fallout well i mean that Do you want to feel like this is a Bethesda-made game?

1:16:07Because I don't know if I do. Oh, here's the problem. What if it's so good? If it is Outer Worlds and it feels better, and all of a sudden we go to Creation Engine 10 years later, and he's like, my turn for the Fallout game. It's like, oh, Todd, this one felt better. Yeah. That's why you probably won't. You probably will use your stuff, which, of course, is what happened with New Vegas, remember? The reason New Vegas was able to be turned so quickly was, hey, you just use Fallout 3 engine assets and all that jazz. and there was that great quote from the guy who was in charge of the time i'm sorry i forget it was in maybe schreier's book whichever one not obviously it was no it doesn't matter uh blood sweat pixels where there was a conversation right maybe i'm wrong but i i'll get to the point of you know they were like oh we'd love for you to be able they were talking of like we should do conversations that can be interrupted by somebody running in and they were like does that happen to fall at three and they're like no then absolutely not we're not we can't we have no time to change anything we are using what they have and we're going to move on that way which in the same boat who knows what the fallout 5 engine looks like right now but fallout 4 would be fine to toss over there because yeah you i don't think you unless we're really getting weird with it i don't think you want the outer worlds version of fallout you know what i mean you don't want it to look like and feel like outer worlds you do want it to feel like it because again especially now more than ever i'm watching that season what a fallout and i'm like jen that's a blood bag that I use in the game like and they there is a look that everyone knows to fall out now so to go over and have it be outer worlds fall out and have it be that kind of UI and that

1:17:40Blessing Adeoye Jr.:kind of pop-up I you can't do I think I don't think this affects the UI I think it just affects maybe the some of the game feel and to that I'd say that's probably a good thing like but but that's Starfield picking up that playing that it's like dog we've been making the same kind of game for decades now and i that's why you believe in elder scroll 6 so much right but i do believe in elder scroll 6 a lot and like that's and that's less so about the game being a 10 out of 10 and more so the game's gonna be very successful because yeah yeah yeah yeah i i'm just doubling back to the argument i see in here like elder scroll 6 is gonna save the day i'm like elder scroll 6 is gonna feel like a fucking bethesda game so if you didn't like the last few bethesda games or had guess what everybody we're not we ain't getting baldur's gate 4 out of them that's not what game you're getting yeah we do have oh sorry go for it in a perfect world it feels like hey this is just you guys getting closer with todd so you don't have to call us all the time you can get direct answers for them do what you're doing right grounded two let's keep that going keep your team on that whatever you were going to set up for fallout why don't you do that right i don't think we need a massive engine change i don't think we need to train new employees on this it's you make yours because this is going to be a fallout whatever underneath the name and then Todd's is going to be Fallout 5, right?

1:18:51That very much feels of like, Todd will have the big Fallout. We still know that. Your team, you make Fallout subtitle, whatever. Just get it out sooner than later because the fans don't want to wait 10 to 15 years for the next Fallout game. Let's go.

1:19:05Blessing Adeoye Jr.:A little bit of breaking news here. I'm looking at the Blue Sky account of Juan Vaca, who is the story director, at least they say in their bio, story director, the coalition. They tweeted out an hour ago saying, I am part of this round of layoffs and am seeking new opportunities. if your team needs a narrative director slash storyteller please reach out and so seems like coalition i'm doing a quick link in to see uh make sure not not that i don't trust you but i know you're saying yeah yeah i gotta call good call yeah i am but wanted to throw that out there greg's gonna double check that one is up here nothing about closing off yet on linkedin but yeah he is uh we can't confirm story to the coalition over here if that's a verified profile or whatever yeah but here we go i mean the game isn't even out yet that's what we've kind of known the cycle of games, right?

1:19:49And our dream always is you to be employed and live the good life and like you move on to the next positive team gets stronger and they have more development ties to each other. The reality is like when your game is nearing the end, there are certain styles of, you know, discipline that aren't needed anymore, right? And here you are it's like your game is about to release. Your ass is wide open for a chopping right? Your work is done here. Your work is done. Yeah, that means your work is done. Therefore your work is done. It's over. It's right. And it's very unfortunate

1:20:15Blessing Adeoye Jr.:that that is the way of the world with this yeah i know we're talking about how fucked up it is that xbox has fired 268 more people today right and that's of course inclusive of the 3600 uh number that they threw out in july but no i'm not i'm not transitioning yeah but i want to go back to something mike said uh earlier right of this as far as the obsidian being shifted to bethesda thing yeah i think that is the right decision as far as organization and making this all make sense um because we're talking about all those layers of leadership that sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud and think about all the hoops you need to jump through and how this just doesn't make sense because xbox microsoft has acquired so much uh so this does make sense i'm excited to see the obsidian fallout i hope they're not salty as are making it be like i wish this is outer worlds but yeah um i i hope not yeah i mean like i i the excitement around fallout the craving of fallout returning to that you know fallout new vegas roots even though i know who's well they brought the guy back right but it was like i i mean i understand but like yeah but were they finding their stride people were celebrating how good avowed was right yeah they were finally like getting their mark of we can be somebody without your name i guess this is the main thing though guys you can also be unemployed so this is a shot to still have a paycheck and benefits so it's like yeah um let's move on to king uh it'll expand its remit to microsoft casual games and adding two global leaders and casual game design and live operations is that one that anybody has any king is gonna fuck up minesweeper i can't this is one of the candy crushes about to go crazy yeah they're gonna fuck it up yeah we never really talk about king King is kind of just this like outside thing that we don't really, we're not super tapped into the mobile game market, nor candy crush, but like King is this just juggernaut that it's its own.

1:22:09And you probably kind of just lean on them to be like, keep doing what you're doing. And if there's a game or something in our world that you can make better, let's have a conversation. Cause clearly there's a lot of dollars being passed through this cell phone that you are getting.

1:22:22Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And we would like a piece of this and thank God that our main complaints when it comes to the Xbox game showcase at E not at not E3, is that oh man every time we're getting fallout 76 and elder scrolls online can you imagine if they're announcing candy crush dlc fucking flip this table we're getting gears pop

1:22:43so microsoft casual games yeah i do think that this makes total sense here uh king with them but that includes solitaire collection mahjong jigsaw minesweeper sudoku ultimate word game i love mine it's like yeah there's a lot there's a lot there but it's like yeah let's ski free let's figure out like how to just keep supporting these things that exist that i'm sure serve an audience that makes them enough money because there are just such there's such a wide install base for yeah mobile and pc for this time remember the moment where you learned how minesweeper

1:23:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:worked i still haven't hit that i don't really yeah i just click randomly all the time i must have been 11 and like i looked at the number i stared at it and i went hold on a second and you realize the number on the board tells you how many bombs are next to that square. Yeah. And so the game is figuring out like, all right. That's why your puzzle numbers. So you tell me if I click and it says one, that means there's a bomb. One of those blocks is a bomb. That's cool. Mine sweeper is actually genius. Our first time playing mine sweeper. Let's do it. Mine sweeper is actually genius. I was hooked on it for a year.

1:23:43Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Who's got that pinball? I like that you brought that up. Dude, I love the pinball. Who's got that pinball? Man. Somebody said, so it's still a guessing game. It's not a guessing game. because you click other squares around it to see. Listen, we'll do this. That's really smart. We'll do this stream. I see it. We'll do this stream. We'll do the Mind Super stream. And then Playground and Turn 10 will come together as one studio focused on Forza and Fable. These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade. Today's stages will formally move their work into one team. Yeah, this is a positive and a big one.

1:24:09We talked about Turn 10 being cut in half, right? The joke was Turn 5, right? And this is a team that was known for the track-style racing. I didn't hear that. I didn't hear that. I didn't know about that. That's crazy. That was an X-Cast thing. We were deep in that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is just the unfortunate part of, it's a positive of bringing these two teams together. Fable is going to be the big one. Where do we go with Forza? Now that you have the extra manpower here of bringing that team in, is the goal to do off and on Forza Motorsport into Forza Horizon? Do we just stick with Forza Horizon?

1:24:42Yeah. You say yes, Tim, but my worry is, is will the audience one day burn out of Forza Horizon? And me and Bless had that conversation on the KFGD of like, yeah, Forza Horizon 5 and 6 have been amazing, right? But 6, I don't hear talked about as much as 5 was, right? It's like we're kind of now hitting this breaking point of I love Forza Horizon. It is an awesome game. It is an open world, endless checklist, right? But will the general audience one day go, hey, I'm kind of burnt out on that? Or is the track of every four to five years the right track for this to survive? I think that the reason that we heard more about five than six, or at least it feels that way, is when it released in the year.

1:25:21Right. Because it wasn't five like way. It was like closer to fall, which then was leading right into that Game Award season. And it being the quality that it was, there was a lot of conversation. And then it got that PS5 release. So it was like they got a second marketing cycle. So I think it was just a little bit more in the conversation. But in terms of quality, we all agree. It's like both are right there. You know what I mean? Like you can prefer this or that about each one. But it's like there's an audience. The quality is there. it's like i i'm with you that at a certain point people can burn out on it but i think that with the cycle they have of how many if it was annualized i think it'd be different but there's something about that style of game of there's always more cars there's always a new place to be it being a technical graphic showcase and it just being so much fun at the end of the day so accessible to people like ben it being one of his first video games like i think for its horizon is a well that you can go back to pretty much as much as you want will it eventually burn out the games media audience absolutely i think we're probably already there like i have a feeling like looking at the future forza horizon 7 no matter where it is all of us is like oh we've kind of been here done that like you can write the review right now uh but i look at the the sales and the reception otherwise and i i don't see that going down like i think that that's just it's a type of game that works so we all agree yeah they're gonna keep going to that well but the question is blessed will they go back to motorsports no or is that done forever done forever it's tough

1:26:41Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Is there not competition with GT? How badly did Motorsport sell? Like this last Motorsport, how badly did it do? Because I love Forza Horizon. I'm right there with you guys. I kind of wish it was a once a generation kind of game. Mainly for that burnout aspect of it. I think it's tough to get multiple Forza Horizons in a generation and stay excited about the game. And we're talking about what might be a more hardcore gamer problem. but i think if you balance that with a once a generation other style of racing game maybe that's motorsport or maybe you make a new title a new either type of forza or you look into activision's back catalog of racing games that they might have i think there could be something there i mean that's a great call yeah people are saying people are saying it was pretty bad so maybe there's no official numbers i have one from the forza read it three years ago that says forza fails to reach the top 20 sales charts so we'll see but yeah i mean we've talked about it when and I've reviewed GT with the team here.

1:27:39We've talked about Forza Motorsport. That is a super diehard small audience that wants those games. The larger audience is we want Forza Horizon. We want this open world Lego meets Hot Wheels experience. Don't be talking about Infinite Rush. Don't be talking about Infinite Rush. Yeah, that's where you go. But the question is, would they ever? And we'll see. Would they ever do another motorsport? I think the answer in this world is no. I think that if they get a little bit on a better track and Xbox still exists five years from now, then I think that, yeah, maybe we can pepper in a motorsport every once in a while.

1:28:15But, like, still very little fanfare. I think they need to get back into a position where I'll just not in, like, only the fucking hits territory. And, like, will they get there? That's my question. So let's talk about it. So I think they don't. Let's talk about the real big game, though. Fable. Next year, right around the corner. Now you take on turn 10 onto the team. Yes, they have a lot of driving expertise. but we saw this team can do both now. Is this a, Hey, now this team is ready to go for a fable too. Or is that a question mark, Greg? It's a fable to guaranteed or is a fable to a giant question mark?

1:28:48I don't think it's a giant question mark. I do think it is a question mark. This goes back. Were you on this games daily with me? But the fable director being like, Oh yeah. He matters too much for any of us to get laid off. And I was like, Oh, by your tongue. And I'm paraphrasing, But it was like, let's get this out the door and let's see how the audience reacts. Let's see how it sells. Let's see if this is this game for me. Greg Miller, open world RPG guy looks incredible. I can't fucking wait. All my RPG nerds are flipping out about it. I listen to the RPG cave. They're talking about it. We're having a good time out there getting ready for it.

1:29:22RPG cave. I love that. Yeah. Greg pulls out the most insane podcast. You're like, that's so kind of funny. Best friends. If you do a podcast about video games, hit me up because I listen to all of them. I'm fucking all over that place People didn't believe that It's like oh no Greg's listening I'm out there It's like I like our stuff And I listen to our stuff Obviously when I'm not on it But I'm on it a lot The RPG I like them a lot 242 episodes Yeah And it's a weekly podcast Yeah Like when I'm walking the dogs at night I often am like You know what I want I want just people talking about games Like you know what I mean Just talking Like That shocks me Because that's all we do here I can't listen to the only podcast anymore I love this job so much everybody.

1:30:02I love you. Thanks for letting me live my dream. Me and Mike, I'll tell you what. Jen's out there, alright? If y 'all can convince her to leave me and take the kid, me and Mike would just stream all weekend too. We'd be here all the time, you know what I mean? She won't though, she loves me too much. Anyways, Fable needs to be fucking incredible. And then, on top of it needing to be incredible, it needs to fucking sell. It needs to sell. Otherwise, it's going to be, Tim, while you are gone, the Coalition story leads got laid off so like it's already happening but where the game's fucking out for them so it's like this is the classic yeah great you got it out the door congratulations here's the cake in the office and then tomorrow here's your meeting with hr and your boss because we don't need you the net you know developer rigor uh person you working in unity because we're only on pre-pro for fable 2 we're to keep a skeleton crew around to pre-pro that and go blah blah blah it's like again the argument here is that i can't trust xbox because i don't trust microsoft so i don't know what any of this is going to be so is fable 2 guaranteed absolutely the fuck not and i would honestly think as tumultuous as this is i would i would put my chips on it not happening and i hate

1:31:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:saying that based on a good fable one look or fable looks we're talking about a game that was greenlit under the phil spencer exactly ding ding ding it really comes down to what do those numbers look like and does asha look at those numbers and go someone remind me is fable coming to day one playstation 5 yes if this game reviews well it's going to sell better on playstation 5 playstation like what's that gonna do tim we go back to the conversation of the install base your competition becoming the world's number one publisher right yeah and having these games the reality of gaming is games cost a lot of money and that means i need a lot of money back and so when i put it on the competition day one in particular huge sales right it's been proven that a year later it still sells very well but like there is something about to be said day one it releasing everywhere and that's those sales fable i think is probably as a unit are one of our most anticipated games of next year especially early next year right we're all very much looking forward to fable what does it coming out in a post gta 6 world do for it because we're talking about only a couple months after you got plenty of time i think the gta audience will eat it up in the next i hope so i hope they'll be looking for something come february because my worry is that the things i'm looking forward to the most for fable is it being an open world very systems heavy character driven rpg and that itch is being scratched in different ways by gta 6 in a way that i know i'm still going to play fable but will there be a gigantic audience so hungry for that kind of game what if i could tell you you're going to get all of that in gta now guess what you're going to continue that itch with a medieval setting and i think people will be like i want more of that yeah let's i think it's the usual thing that when the tea leaves get misread where i think obviously there's going to be such an influx of people buying gta but the overwhelming majority of those people were never going to buy another game in the calendar year you know what i mean like yeah they're yeah they will still be playing gta throughout into next year up gta online yada because that's what they do whereas yes a medieval rpg different conversation in terms of what that audience is and i think the audience that it's speaking to the people who listen to the rpg cave or listen to us i think your hearts are more open to i want to go do that versus and again i think this is a weird one the interact that i'm speaking of two games i've only watched and i have not played right but the interactivity between gta npcs and yourself as the character and fable npcs and yourself and the character seem on paper similar but drastically different in terms of like in gta you're not going to marry any of them you're not going to follow them around you're not going to buy their business and then you know i'm married listen listen listen listen i will be but it's not I think you know you're not gonna buy the town the shops in town and jack up all the rent and throw everybody like that's not what GTA's interactivity will be the I fire off a gun and what does that guy do and how does this you know like there'll be that kind of sandboxing this to it of like yeah when I drop this piece of food in front of the anthill what happens whereas I feel like fable is gonna be more like oh man I want to pull the strings on these characters this town in a way that GTA is yeah i'm excited i think three months is is a the right amount of time for that but like february fable's not alone up next to a bunch of other games there's a lot of that's the other thing is god of war final fantasy right around the corner right yeah it's a month later but that's still right around the corner metro there's another big game that i'm forgetting but that february is looking crazy metro let's build a dungeon tomb raider god of war revival for revival hyrule age of calamity definitely raider legacy of atlantis don't forget yugioh tag force gx can't forget that one we'll forget and then january is also pretty hot so yeah it is interesting because like we we don't know we're not there yet we'll see in a couple months but i feel like everyone at this table is under the same impression that fable's gonna kick ass right i hope so like we expect that game to really really not just be a great game but actually to be a truly amazing game is there any opposition to what i'm saying here i think for me it's more hope than trust but like i trust is at least it's going to be good yeah yeah i hope what i've seen i've seen enough that i'm just like oh shit i actually think they're pulling this off like it has that that x factor that you're you're looking for and we don't know yet but of course just with that i do think that this is going to be a a very interesting data point to to look at in the months after of all right we have this game that we're assuming is going to be critically well received that I'm assuming that the audience is going to really love and that I'm assuming is going to sell well.

1:35:53Like, I think that it is going to pass expectations if the expectations are set anywhere correctly. And what happens after that? Well, now you have a team that has two projects that are both great, right? And so now you can look at Asha and say, hey, we're on a cycle here. We're going to give you Forza, then we're going to move the Fable and back and forth and back and forth if that's how this game goes. Two teams that are very distinct. And it's like, hey, we have two solid projects. That is one that you, that's like the moneymaker right there. Like, they're good right now. We can leave them to be.

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1:42:09I do think this is one of the bigger issues Xbox is facing right now is that they need to just keep talking. They don't need to. They do just keep talking though, but there's so much and And their hands are in so many cookie jars that it's impossible to just be like, hey, we probably it's not a good look to talk about this right now because we have this bad thing happening and it's going to look like we're covering this up, whatever. It's like, but they're just fucked because they are responsible because they acquired countless teams. And so now they have countless good and bad news to talk about at all freaking times.

1:42:39And it's a disaster because they're making all these decisions that are affecting thousands, literally, of people's lives. and then you look at something and it's just like well kojima was busy at prada yeah but like

1:42:52Blessing Adeoye Jr.:do people care i know we care i know our audience cares but when you announce you're taking fizz from playstation i think xbox is really is relying on the fact that more of the the broader gamer base is going to care about that than they do about layoffs and restructures yeah 100 yeah the the gamer world right now the twitch audience people tuning into other gamers and just listening the podcast they're not going to listen they're not going to hear much about the layoffs besides the deep analysis that we bring right other than that they're going to be like oh shit the next kojima game's coming that's cool and they're going to move about their day right and it's funny you bring that up right we talked with matt booty we talked with pete hines and with aaron greenberg of like how do you market all this what is xbox and they talked about it's like we could announce something every single day we have so many things going on we have plenty of news to talk about and And yeah, Tim, that's going to be the cycle that Xbox is in forever.

1:43:43We kind of make this joke of they're stepping on rakes and they continue to take one step forward and then two steps back. But the reality is they have news to talk about every single day. And it's going to be just this roller coaster of ups and downs for a long time. Yeah. I mean, to me, my takeaway of this is not like, oh, my God, how could Xbox spend all this money on Kojima while they're doing all this stuff? I look at more like, well, guys, I don't have any faith in this Kojima thing working. I feel like, look at this. this is that's yeah this is just them trying stuff but like oh man like they clearly are not they're betting on a name there but like we best and i've talked about this for days now if not longer it's just like you know what you bought here like you know who you're marrying so also

1:44:24Blessing Adeoye Jr.:kojima's hanging out with celebrities because celebrities like kojima it's not like he's paying the millions of dollars to be around him like kojima scan but they need kojima they need a kojima game they need a big kojima game when you talk about hey what's going to make you buy this console what is going to make the fan base want to buy the next console it has to be the biggest and the baddest the best games and a kojima game especially the one that is a follow-up to metal gear is going to be one of those pieces we line up the dominoes greg but it is a huge domino to put up there alongside the todd howard elder scrolls games right like these are massive things of like apply the pressure you have to make the fan base and the general gaming audience go i don't want to miss that of course yeah will the money run drive will this actually get to the ending of the finish line we'll see but like today it has to be announced and celebrated by them because they need you in two years to buy this console that's the tough thing is yeah when we're talking about the strategy of xbox i think we're in agreement that they're kind of fucked in all directions but their option isn't then to just sit on their hands it's like well they're gonna do shit they're gonna they're gonna get kojima to make a game for their platform it's like you're they're still gonna be mobile in terms of trying to do things so i look at the kojima news and i'm like all right we'll see we'll see at least the game continues i hope for the best i hope yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah because playstation straight dropped playstation was gonna cancel the games yeah yeah so and i want to see what fizzant is and i hope he scans more celebrities in it uh jeff bull jr says i'm a huge halo fan honestly kind of excited for another studio to get to go at halo i'm bummed for the layoffs though yes bummed for the halo studio layoffs especially because it was a breath of fresh air it was a rebranding it was a new chapter and we kind of celebrated that of like all right hey we gave you a decade there was some ups there some downs from halo 4 halo 5 and onward it's like let's take a deep breath let's restart right now with of course halo campaign evolved positive let's go from there let's see where we go from here and then of course to be like hey actually we're gonna lay off 200 plus people and we're gonna put this under activation they're gonna make a new team it's like okay where does halo go right are we really going to halo 2 are we doing halo campaign evolve 2 are we gonna make something new what is the timeline for that but really it should be celebrated of like hopefully this will open the door more people in the sandbox more games of halo let's make those great and justify why halo should still be the top dog chef keith says so glad to see halo in someone else's hands which was id software but 343 slash halo studios has been floundering for years thanks for everything guys yeah the id software thing is interesting right like rumors are it's wolfenstein 3 which makes sense machine no sorry it's machine games yeah yeah machine games and it are the two like they're yeah they're cousins studios but halo is fascinating to me because i what has been the solution with halo i know mike you talked about it in a million x casts yeah but what's been what they've been doing hasn't been working and so you've got to do something with it and so i guess this is anything to do and i'm an outsider 100 on both halo activision call of duty but is activision the team to do it like i guess what do you want out of halo you know what i mean i guess where it's like i'm like oh i wouldn't last week i had the thought of it's funny we're at today last week i had the thought of man it'd be dream this into existence it'd be no i dream the opposite thing which was man it'd be great if xbox just bought bungie and they just made halo like bungie need something xbox needs somebody to make halo what if xbox got bungie again and now we're in a place where both of them have hit us with updates and it's like whoa all right cool yeah no that's not that's definitely not in the in the cards but yeah i don't know i know that thing is oh man god i'm so with you or bungie that'd be that'd be fantastic that'd be the way that'd be the way that'd be the way to fix both yeah so many problems just like well maybe not solved maybe not solved yeah um but but uh your question greg yeah the i i don't know i don't think the answer is yes but it does make me go hmm because i said earlier halo is two things it's multiplayer in the modern world and it is or that's what it needs to be and a quality campaign and when call of duty hits hardest it's when it is both of those things and we do get an amazing campaign that we're talking about on our top 10 kind of funny list right with multiplayer that is modern with the expectations and the live service follow-ups and updates and support and call of duty proves year after year they can do that right in a way that halo studios proved they couldn't with or 343 whatever um with the halo infinite yeah halo is uh the captain america holding on to the helipad and the helicopter trying to stay firm because it is i have to appeal to the old heads and the old fans of this game because they are the people who ride or die for this and celebrate it but also it needs to become modern in the new age as tim just brought up with all the things they need to do and it's like it's just trying to be pulled apart at the seams and maybe it needs to be pulled apart completely right go under activision who has proven that they can do call of duty they know the hits they know the misses right and say hey we got to get off this whatever you're doing it's time for a reset and they need that if i can ask a question what did halo infinite get wrong because the live service for that for that month man i had such a fun time they missed that is this the way to fix it.

1:49:36When you go to the live service kings? Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a team who knows how to drop content at all times, right? Call of Duty, whether you love it or hate it, right? Call of Duty understands that their audience loves them for the first three months, then starts to separate the next three months, and then has to win them back from three to six, six to nine, nine to a year, until the next follow-up, right? And there's nobody better in the industry than trying to keep an audience like that in the first-person shooter genre than them, truly and honestly. They know map packs. They know content updates.

1:50:05They are the team that you would look to and go, how do you fix this live service? Whether you hate it or not, the words that I'm saying to you, they've proven over the past decade. They're the team that does this right in the team arena shooter markets.

1:50:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah. And battle Royale, a halo battle Royale. I think that ship's in. Oh, the ship sailed. Yeah. Again, with so many of these conversations, yeah, the ship sailed, but like that doesn't change the fact that that is, or was the answer. It's like, Mike, the vehicles, the weapons the jump the feel of halo with 99 other motherfuckers yeah dude big team battle like then it's still not too much sense it's still technically not dead right like i know we roll our eyes at battle royales but a great battle royale can stand out and still get the players a new one oh yeah when was the last new halo when was the last new battle royale we've moved to extraction shooters but that's what i'm gonna say yeah but like halo extraction is what they're the latest extraction shooters not finding an audience yeah like wasn't arc raiders just a year ago arc raiders was but then what happened to marathon yeah but like we're talking about one game yeah i don't granted i agree with you that like i don't have trust in many more extraction shooters hitting it big yeah but arc raiders was only a year ago and you could do that halo five halo four but really five had the halo wars or whatever that big team battle which was two giant teams against PVE while pushing up against each other.

1:51:28There was a monetization card system that we don't talk about, but there was a very large PVEVP situation going on that you could go back to and make really good, but I don't think the Battle Royale ship has completely sailed. You could find something there, but it is going to be something mixed with a extraction shooter PVEVP mixed with a Battle Royale. Something has to be there.

1:51:52Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That just sounds too confused. and it sounds like you're describing Dustbloods, which I previewed and was a very difficult game to describe. I mean, there's something about the squad base of four people. There's something about the Halo vehicles and weapons, as Tim brought up, the environments, these giant maps that you could create in the Halo universe. You could see it. Me and my foursome in a warthog, whipping by you and your foursome, shooting at another foursome as we choose. Are we third party and we drive and buy that? Then there's another team with rockets in the distance. There's somebody in a banshee, right like there is a painting here that can be captured but as you say but there's a lot of elements now in the 2026 gamer world that is like very tough to jam together that don't mix what is so have you played war dogs yet i have played just a little bit of war because that seems that's the latest big yes first person shooter success what is it that that game is doing that we can learn from right now as far as the space side of things people like intense tactical gameplay okay how many players is tactical 2026 large i mean that it's like a battlefield big world right it's like that's what i i lean to battlefield for is like this kind of giant 64 v 64 tactical experience right and war dogs is capturing a little bit of that right and it's new and fresh that's what people want that is the cycle that we're on as first person gamers shooters shooter genre gamers it's like we want something fresh something new something that shakes it up and they have a mix of this tactical meets large-scale military war that people like.

1:53:22Resolute says Halo Studios and 343 upper management did an awful job handling Halo. It's good that somebody else gets another crack at it. So yeah, a lot of shared sentiment there. Chris Holker says Halo under Activision. They need to merge the esports departments of Halo, COD, and Overwatch and use the MLG branding Activision owns. Hoping for the best. Any thoughts there, Mike? I mean, yeah, that's the dream, right? There's like such a weird esports conversation that we could have of like what is that drive what does that do did that bubble pop right is esports still the in thing unless you are the top three esports which is that dota league of legends counter strike some valorant mixed in like you got to be really big right what is call of duty overwatch now they had their big moment but they haven't been as big as they once were there's still a ride or die audience i don't know if esports is still the answer but i do agree with this of like if i had those three I would bring eSports into a big way.

1:54:16Halo deserves it. So does Call of Duty. And Overwatch, I can lean on. They're the big dog. Do you like MLG as the branding? Yeah, I'm not mad at it. Yeah, better than an Xbox competitive eSports, whatever they would call it. Yeah. Reed says, excited for the double feature. Thank you so much. Kuma says, what the hell did I wake up to? It's another day of Games Daily, baby. Another day in the games industry. Max says all this stinks but why do the Kojima deal every time I think I understand what it is it changes again selling or growing wah wah wee wah well they want exclusives and they want cool partnerships and they want good karma you know what I mean they want good games too I mean let's not throw that away either so that's why you step in again like this is such a convoluted and weird conversation and argument to continue to have of like again anybody who got into that CEO O-Roll after Phil would be doing these decisions and trying to get their vision in motion.

1:55:18And Kojima and Fizzant is part of Asha's vision for the future. This is still mopping up the mess that they were given based on what criteria they have for success based on Satya Nadella. I also just think that despite everything going on right now, you have the opportunity to get Fizzant, to get Kojima. Do you say no to that if you have the money to say yes? I feel like this is a you say yes and you figure it out later and hey it might fuck everything up but it might not and when you have Microsoft money I think that that's where that decision starts it ends yeah in the sports world this is a LeBron James a Tom Brady a Lionel Messi right of like okay we can get him for how much or we can work that out okay yeah just do it we'll figure it out right it's like you kind of pull the trigger on that right and you've seen positives from that right Messi has come down to Miami and has made people believe in soccer in America right people are going to soccer games in america can people go oh wow kojima i'm gonna go for this box i think as blessing said if you could show this game we would be in a different conversation here of like if people could see it come to life yeah there would probably be a lot more positivity

1:56:25Blessing Adeoye Jr.:around it adds it does add to that game roster i think very strongly i and since my the roster i was pitching about an hour ago on the show of if you come out in the first few years with an elder scrolls with a fizzin with a fallout with a halo and all these things you know like i think we all made very good points of why that still doesn't work out but i know for me if i was back where i was where i only had money for one platform and i had to make a decision that would make the decision a bit harder for me of oh shit i go over here and play the bethesda games i know i love and the new kojima game or i go over here and i play god of war and spider-man like that's that becomes a tougher decision for some games start to feel it start to feel it uh-huh i might here comes the feeling i might go for the fizzing that's where it has to be right they have to come out and say hey tim and bless i have x y and z and i know you have that over there but like we're making a case over here and that's where they need to be unfortunately this past generation they didn't make that case they were close they tried but there was too many misses unfortunately opponents prime says as a human i'm empathetic but logically this is probably what's best for xbox and these ip it's harsh but i'm not surprised by ninja theory senua doesn't have the juice i I imagine Undead Labs will follow suit after State of Decay 3 doesn't sell.

1:57:34Well, they're independent now, so they get to figure that out on their own and see what's up, and you don't have somebody necessarily on top of you telling you what is and isn't the right call and what you have to do afterwards. But yeah, again, switching to independent from being on the bankroll of Xbox is going to definitely be a shocker to everybody to settle that and figure that out. Yeah. Guitar Hero Arrow says, All this after the Fizzit news is crazy. Do we really think the Koji Pro deal will survive? one of the next layoff sprees they can fund him for the next decade but can barely keep their own ship afloat this just goes back to what we were just saying of just like this is just an opportunity that i think is outside of the rest of the conversation and it's also a shockingly different opportunity right let's not you know take for granted how relatively cheap it is to say hey we are gonna fund your game or whatever this deal is we're not funding the studio we're not taking you on we're not bringing on all your infrastructure all your employees we are giving you a set amount of money to make this game for us.

1:58:30That's a far different thing than we are running a studio in perpetuity of hundreds of people. This is back to how we always talk about Marvel Games, where Marvel Games, when they redid all their stuff, it wasn't cool, we're making three in-house studios. It was, no, we're going to take our IPs and work with people like Insomniac. Michael, bringing in some realness, saying, Today our focus should be on supporting those affected and treating one another with care and respect. Look ahead to one of the strongest game lineups in our history. f off next gen reveal will be another we promise games are coming in 2030 yeah that's there's just no denying that that's just where we're at science talk official says the pivot to activision makes me very makes sorry makes very good business sense but mass layoffs are always bad people matter more than business as microsoft shared insights about the severance offered those impacted no no they don't that's not how that works but they do offer up all these like internal memos i which i understand and i wonder when this started like was this just like well jason Shriger's going to put it out anyway so we might as well just get ahead of it.

1:59:31Like not a bad thing but it is it's kind of weird but when you're just in charge of so much shit it's just like they're kind of like well half the world works for us until they don't because we decide we don't want them to do it. Let's share this memo with everyone. Matt O 'Brien says in an effort to shine a little light on this dark day Halo did not play well on Unreal. If Halo can't have its proprietary engine I'd rather it be made on the COD engine. I liked Campaign Evolved a lot I liked how it felt I liked Campaign Evolved I had no problem with that engine switch up we knew that slip space was the problem it was a good engine but unfortunately trying to bring on a bunch of contractors and people and the endless revolving door wasn't fast enough or feasible to keep that afloat so they had to make the change we'll see where they go what does Activision help and teach them with I mean that's a talented team meets a great franchise what can they do David says Xbox still hasn't proved they can grow and nurture a studio to become an industry leader leadership continues to be a huge issue so while that's true we were talking about this earlier but i do think that playground has the opportunity to do that if fable succeeds like having two franchises that are so wildly different if they succeed to the level that we hope that they will it's like yeah they could be up there in that conversation the way we talk about so many playstation studios but and to be fair a lot of the playstation studios these days we're not talking about with that level of like undeniable reverence like i think we still are with naughty dog but we are getting a little more jaded to the fact that it's been 10 years you know it will be 10 years or upwards of 10 years

2:01:04Blessing Adeoye Jr.:you got to create an environment where a studio can grow and a studio can thrive and i i trust less and less on the playstation side that they've been able to continue to create that environment nowadays and on the xbox side it's like yeah like i don't i've not looked at most of their studios as what we're describing but yeah playground is a really good one to point out as a studio that came up under Xbox and has put out hit after hit after hit for years now. I'd question that a little bit with Coalition, right? The Gears team, a team that has celebrated with their work with Unreal Engine, a team that has been leaned on by all of the Xbox studios to go and seek help with, be guided by.

2:01:39And like, that's a team with four into five. Five was much better than four and they continued to carry the Gears torch. We're looking at Gears E-Day of like, this could be even better than all of that. And like a really big return to form to Gears 1 and 3, it's like, do we not talk about the coalition that way at all? Do we just push them aside and say they're not up there? Xbox hasn't nurtured that team at all? I don't, Mike. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's like they made great games. Like, great games. And I feel like the leadership level there for Gears being what that franchise is, like, yeah, I don't see it as that leader level stuff.

2:02:16And I mean, E-Day, again, I think that we're in such a bad place right now for that game to be exclusive on Xbox. Like, laughs are happening over there. They already are. They already are. It's happening right now. Fuck. Mac says, you guys are awesome. Always get me through my daily commutes. Remember, Snowbike Mike, it's Mac, not Mark. Shout out, man. Shout out, man. Yes, I thought it was Mark. Shout out, man. I was dealing with a tooth issue, but I'm back now, Tim. I'm back now. Yeah. Lazy Lion says, Matt was overlooking the Xbox Game Studios and all these studios which did not produce to expectations today are getting sold and closed just like the studios that needs to be accountability at executive level yeah i mean we saw that right with sarah and phil yeah eventually uh kyle labeoff says birthday tax another day another shitty xbox news story gotta wonder how it feels to read about kojima and visit one week and then lose your job the next number must go up i would be so pissed happy birthday i would be so pissed

2:03:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:off if i was if i worked at xbox if i got laid off either back in july or today to think that man our studio we were about to put out gear z day or whatever and now i don't have a job meanwhile you threw out you threw so much money at kojima and i know we're talking about how different that is as far as how the money gets treated and whatever but in this situation still a feel bad yeah no in this situation i mean losing i'm on linkedin just trolling through all the people who are out here saying they're you know laid off today and it's just like they don't care what the actual business realities are you know what i mean yeah michelangelo says xbox lost to playstation in part because they couldn't shepherd 10 out of 10 games they just bought their ip with daddy microsoft's money why should we expect a different outcome because the logo's green again exactly and it's like they don't even have control over it because call of duty has to be everywhere there's a very different story mike very different story if when we first started hearing about all this news and i can hear paris saying you don't buy you don't spend 69 billion dollars to or million dollars to get a billion dollars jesus it is a b yeah my god that's insane um to not keep your games exclusive and it's like well we're there and that didn't happen and it was hella messy and it's like but what if they did it would have been a totally different story but they couldn't even do it they weren't even allowed to do it but they still spent 69 billion dollars uh man opponents prime says wasn't xbox hands off and let them make what they want and not enough people wanted what they were making if anything there should have been more hands-on I mean there's that there's the game pass it is there's it's not just one problem that happened it's like so many things working against there was no coherent vision that everything was working towards that one vision there was like different little like streets and avenues and alleys that everyone's running towards and it's like they're not even going to the same place So even if you do it right, you're not ending up where people wanted you.

2:05:04Bulk Dasher says no, the Golden Bullets, Kojima, and Disk to Digital. Oh, okay. No, no. When I was talking about a Golden Bullet, if I was going to say this. Ciderfire says Halo's biggest issue is that it's an arena shooter. Deshawn says Halo under Activision potentially solved the stagnation problem COD has. I imagine we get a Halo every three years with CODs in between, allowing Activision Studios to work with new ideas they can bring back to Call of Duty. Which I think could be neat. Now I'm like that. Yeah, I meant to say that earlier. That's where my mind goes of like, now we get back on the hamster wheel, right?

2:05:36And we've talked about how Call of Duty has lost that third leg right there that they would lean on with Sledgehammer and those games, right? And the question mark was like, what are we going to do? And it was really, Call of Duty Warzone has taken up so much time and effort from so many studios. But now you add in Halo, right? and we just start the wheel again where it is call of duty call of duty halo but will they take a

2:05:57Blessing Adeoye Jr.:year off right do they have it in them to go no call of duty because of halo they should absolutely not they don't have it in them though they're not going to take a year off of call of duty so then what happened is call of duty colon halo wow you know on the drive over today i was thinking about that and i'm like call of duty halo involved but i'm just like god damn it dude i think that might be the answer i think i would not i think i would quit i think i'd be like you know what none of this makes sense anymore i'm out of here i don't know it makes sense i think it makes sense colon halo would be symbolic of what has happened to microsoft yeah but it would be so it would sell better than halo i don't what what does work mean i think it recontextualizes what halo can be nowadays and it's saying hey call these about war and we're fighting a war up here in space against It's purple guys.

2:06:47Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I feel like that leads to Halo fans outside of Microsoft with picket signs going, no. Meanwhile, these Call of Duty fans throwing their money at the screen. Yuck. I mean, they've done advanced warfare, infinite warfare. They've been in space before. But Call of Duty Halo? Yuck. We're going to get a situation, though, where it's going to be a Titanfall 3, Battlefield 6, and a Call of Duty situation where it's like Call of Duty and Halo are now battling up against each other, and we're just eating each other's piece of the pie. Yeah, it's going to be the Titanfall 2 situation. which they've already been doing, but now it's a little bit harder here.

2:07:21Greg is tweeting it. I'll call my shot. I'm with you. Honestly, I pizza bet that that's what's happening. I can't spell it.

2:07:30Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I would be, like, every now and every day actually, I go on Twitter and I see mad Xbox fans. I would join them. I would be like, guys, I'm on the front lines with you. This is fucking insane. You don't call Call of Duty Halo. Call of Duty colon Halo evolved. Ugh.

2:07:51Amazon will buy Xbox as age of atomic. They have the money. AWS dabbled in gaming, make hardware, and they have the TV and movie studios to quote, exploit the IP. It'll be terrible. Uh, yeah, no, you think? No, I think I could see Amazon buying studios. I P, but not Xbox is the brand. Oh yeah. I don't, I don't think that's what happened. Yeah. But see, I, I see this almost at, well, I guess the call of duty makes it impossible. or just very difficult but i can see them whittling down to the point that there isn't much and xbox isn't all of these things it is just a handful of the most desirable ip and that's kind of it but i mean i think we're a year or two away from that which is very sad uh sk ch 16 says when are we getting the next elder scrolls it's been too long and what happened to rare and banjo are

2:08:37Blessing Adeoye Jr.:we ever getting one quick question they've been in a coma yeah uh jay foley says xbox let them make games and art they wanted i'm confused on the point being made that was from before it goes back to the conversations we've been having so much about that was the game pass vision that was the regime of different kpis and then someone came in and was like no those were fucking stupid you idiots why were we doing that we need to make greg what money uh i'm just billy says sup y 'all literally just woke up y 'all keeping me alive through this shingles infection fuck activision love y 'all all right um all right let's see what unique super chats do we have here unique technique imagine booting up halo and you see three menu items campaign multiplayer zombies gross i mean

2:09:30before firefight was amazing i guess now i know what the flood is love firefight imagine now i putting up halo and seeing a playstation logo i mean yeah we live in a different world imagine when they end on xbox direct at sgf and they're like and now for the call of duty showcase

2:09:49set williams says what happens when fable sells better on playstation 5 that's what i was saying earlier i'm going to be very interested in like what the messaging is there of what osha says shit we made a lot of money over there fuck like ah maybe maybe we got to become a public yeah man And Chad has really bought into the zombies idea, by the way. Chad loves it. Yeah, man.

2:10:12Prairie writes it. Greg's incredible. So much bullshit right now, and he's killing it with kind of funny. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Your four-time. He kills it every day. Back to back to back, champ. See you for the parade, the top 100, October 12th, every day. SKCH says, why does Nintendo get the benefit of the doubt? Waiting 10-plus years for the next 3D Mario game. If this was Xbox, are these double standards? Good point. I don't understand what the fuck is wrong with you. What the fuck is wrong with people? They're fucking around. Okay, they better be. They fucking better be fucking around.

2:10:43I don't think they're fucking around. This is why your teachers scream, show your work at you when you do math equations. You're just in a vacuum. Like, do their games come out in 10 years? One must suck. Like, no, wait a second. I'm going to track record, you fucking idiot. That's a Team Blue fan if I ever met one. Damn. um volk dasher says we always say xbox needs to beat playstation but like it or not playstation is everywhere and will continue but xbox so behind it needs it needs to convince it's even a good second console first and even that it's failing or it has them competing with switch which it's also losing against i think there's a valid point in there right where it's like i i disagree that we always say xbox needs to beat playstation move on guys that ain't happening right unless needs to be profitable unless playstation just completely like fucks itself up which it's going down a path it's trying to but but it's just like they with what we're talking about of like the actual competition let's just be real but i do think the question for xbox is are they still even competing or not are they viable they're trying to serve me now they're like are they trying because they're saying that they are they're saying that they are but it's like they it is trying to convince people that a second place is necessary because i think that there There's a compelling argument that it's simply, it's not.

2:11:54It's like, there's just not a place for a$1 ,200 piece of hardware. That's been the question for the past 10 years that they've been trying to answer. Who are they? What are they doing? Game Pass was like, Game Pass was clearly the move that they wanted to double down on. If we could get this everywhere and put it in everybody's hands, will they come over here and just give us the$20 a month? We'll give you the best value in gaming. Will that lead to the best sales in the game? Play it on your phone. Play it on your PC. let's put it on the tv can we just be there and see if people even want a second option it's already hard enough out there just being the first option jordan says somehow make a deal to package geforce now with game pass put all your games on it get rid of cloud streaming and then have a dedicated app on the series x and s i mean dude again so much of this is just like hey xbox the things that you're you've committed to so hard that are making some level of money for you give up on them you know and that's and that's a tough place to be i i do think that like this is the first time nvidia and g-force has come up at all today but like yeah i i do think they like keep your eyes on them when we're talking about this pc space of what that lower end could look like man and with the money of god nvidia has i don't think they'll be the ones to purchase xbox i don't think that they they have that in them but like maybe let's see where the world goes i didn't think about i just also i think the nvidia is going down a path where gaming will continue to be a thing for them, but AI and everything else the world is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger than gaming, so I don't think they're going to be focusing on Xbox is going to be such a small potato.

2:13:25It already is small potatoes for where they're at in the market for where their money is coming from, but they also really love games, and that is their origin, and I don't see them ending that love and support. Mexiban says, as a PS5 exclusive user, I'd sooner spend the money on a PC than invest into a brand with an unknown future.

2:13:45Blessing Adeoye Jr.:What if your Xbox is a PC? Think about that. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. Straw Hat says, I like that E-Day is on Steam and Xbox app and Xbox consoles because believe it or not, but exclusive sell. I think Microsoft should focus on refining the Xbox app on PC and try to utilize Xbox Play anywhere.

2:14:06Yeah. We were talking about it for years. Just stunned every time I turn it on and go, what the fuck?

2:14:15the honesty SirSonic says birthday tax turned 43 today happy birthday thanks for everything you guys do I broke my foot earlier this year and needed surgery yesterday my doc said I'm fully recovered let's make this next year bigger and better than the last go team orange sorry about your foot bet you kicked a wall when he said among us uh among us you know what i mean i i want to read this this one just because i think it's it'll make blessing laugh um assassin 4233 says having two potential xbox exclusives from kojima and the possibility of xbox continuing physical discs is making some people consider jumping from playstation to xbox now get this there's a source for that a rumor from xbox insider survey

2:15:06some people are considering jumping mike we're hearing some rumors over here about people jumping oh none of the disc i love the internet big deal oh please no playstation won't give me that plastic disc i'll find another place to get a plastic disc uh trimbley wimbley says the problem with the game pass everywhere strategy is ai killed cloud gaming cheap cloud boxes in every home was the vision that vision is dead i don't know that those two things go against each other I think that the cloud gaming stuff is going to be the cheaper end thing that AI forces because I think that the hardware and non-cloud gaming stuff is going to be just prohibitively expensive.

2:15:44Elix says, this is a heavy news day but I wanted to let Bless know. Happy first day of autumn.

2:15:49Blessing Adeoye Jr.:First day of autumn. Spooky season! Happy spooky season. But also, I'm not the one that said winter ended in January or some shit. You know what I mean? that was tim and i forget who else it was mike tim and mike we're talking about spring starting in february i think that's crazier the autumn collection of animal crossing stuff's in the nintendo store now who we i'm in trouble oh great dizzy d503 says xbox just has to survive until 2033 when cod becomes xbox exclusive there you go there is that conversation i always have in the back of my mind it's like after 10 years are they allowed to just go exclusive right like is that the goal here could you hold on for that long and at that point where are we like does that even the world might not exist by the way yeah where are we but yeah i mean like paris said and i said on the x-cats it's like when you buy all these things the goal was to make this straight up exclusive and force the other people's hands of now you have to make a decision and would call of duty lose a bunch of money of course but would you start to take some of the player base that's the big question right those ball and gun gamers that we always tease and make fun of like those people who buy madden and call of duty every single year would they start to go oh shit what do you mean i don't get call of duty anymore it's over there would they start to go okay well i gotta buy that now right or would they be the ones to be like you know what fuck that i'm not going over there no they would buy the xbox but you're not gonna buy the xbox I can't do that.

2:17:21Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah, legally. Which is probably a good thing because we don't want monopolies out here. Machine XP says, just to keep things balanced, I can see Netflix buying and acquiring PlayStation. Kill me. Just take me out right now. And then the last one here is Rabbit of Carbonog says, maybe I'm just naive, but I feel like quite a bit of Xbox's bad decisions have come from Microsoft leadership and not Xbox's. now it'll be tougher with the amount of money and effort Microsoft's putting into AI yeah I think a lot of that is true and you know I it's just a broken record going over and over again but you need to commit to a vision and if you and your team are committing to a vision and the team that controls you above you is like no we don't like that and we have a different vision going in a different direction everyone loses everyone loses and that's what happened and that's what continues to happen right now as we see all the crystal clear vision right now good lord well that was your kind of funny games daily slash games cast for tuesday september 22nd 2026 um i love you all i appreciate you all the day is not over you're about to get a screencast for resident evil we will be reviewing that right after this so thank you so much for hanging out with us today until next time game daily

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