Bungie Layoffs, Xbox Price Increase - Kinda Funny Games Daily 06.25.26

0:01Nick Scarpino:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. play high on life 2 now on xbox playstation and pc with a demo newly available on all three platforms also it is hitting nintendo switch 2 wednesday july 1st and catch it on discount for the first time as part of the steam summer sale if you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com slash kind of funny today's gaming news stories include bungie announces layoffs the price of the xbox is going up and could gta 6 get a physical disc later on well all this and more because this is kind of funny games daily

1:04yo what's up welcome to kind of funny games daily for thursday june 25th 2026 i'm your host blessing adioe jr joining me is the nitro rifle andy cortez the first two things you mentioned in that cold open I thought like am I in early 2025 like late 2024 again bungee layoffs, Xbox price increase the box going up but it wasn't until the third thing that I was like oh actually yeah was I reading off an old doc I accidentally pulled up you may have had the wrong thing open there June 25th 2025 can I say something about all this? please we will be Nintendo fans, y 'all gotta shut the fuck up man cause like y 'all over here when a Nintendo fan gets mad it's cause we didn't see enough of Ocarina at a time it's cause oh man they closed the direct with only Kingdom Hearts 4 and a new Zelda Ocarina remake meanwhile I look at these other companies Bungie they laid off the entire Destiny team and some of the Marathon team the fucking Xbox is going up by$100 the Series S is$500 dollars the series s it's 500 you know all nintendo fans are like oh yeah man where's my i want mario i want more mario i get five a year but i want more i want another fire emblem do they say that i don't think they say that well they're getting a new fire i think they say that if they didn't know right right oh they should have turned on bluetooth earlier and you're right all valid complaints yeah all valid yeah but damn dude it's it's a rough one blessing i i really couldn't believe my eyes this morning i thought like no this is surely an old i'm looking at an old article i'm looking at something older and then you see the scuttlebutt on social and you go no oh this is happening right now perfect time to i mean honestly for both companies you know you go all the other people are putting out bad news let's put out our bad news as well and race the back And it really just becomes like, here's all of the bad news that we get to showcase today.

3:13Are we ever going to have like an awesome show here? I mean, what's some personal good news you have going on? Well, I was going to say some good news. Some really, really good news for the city of Charlotte. The Charlotte Hornets. LaMelo Ball has been traded to Minnesota. so he can no longer terrorize the streets with his reckless driving. He will be in Minnesota now. And sometimes it snows in Minnesota, so you can't even drive. You think that's going to stop him? You think that's going to stop him? Shit, he might try. Damn, that might be even more dangerous. He's going to be like, oh, I can drift even better now.

3:53That's what I did in high school. I was really, really shocked, though, that Nas— I'm sad that Nas Reed is leaving Minnesota. I feel like he was such a staple to the Minnesota Timberwolves team. I love Nas Reed. I would have loved him to be a Spur. But he's going off to Greener Pastures. No, not Greener Pastures. Greener Pastures. No, no, he's going to the Hornets, and that's not necessarily greener pastures. You don't want to really be with the Hornets, yeah. I hate that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I'm trying to think of some personal good news for me. My birthday's next week. That's fun. Happy early birthday.

4:18Thank you. What do you want? What's your number one wish? My number one wish for my birthday? If you don't see World Peace, I'm canceling you. Can't see the first one. I'll say, I don't know. World Peace. World Peace, yeah. I want the wars to end. You're not getting canceled. I want genocides to end. Yeah, that's good. pre-palestine these are all pre-palestine let's yeah um and you know if you're gonna wish for that you know like i was mentioning on the games cast or on the games cast plays yesterday where we played um we were using the steam machine and showing that off which is really really fun me and roger did like a lot of real time kevin was trying to set up like different shots of like here's what the ps5 looks like with resident evil requiem here's what this looks like and we're kind of doing you know little demos in real time it was a lot of fun really cool stream talking about the price of it obviously steam machine would have been a cool buy maybe a recommend for somebody who wants to dip their toe into pc gaming but doesn't want to do a whole lot of fiddling and tinkering 750 would have been an awesome price at a thousand you're like dang and then you go you know thanks to ai thanks to these massive companies that really only care about uh uh taking you know creating a product to take away jobs and you know it's not great for the environment and you know the certain cities that are getting ai data centers are like they're the temperature in the city is raising by like four to five degrees in some cases it's like well that's not okay right when you put it like that what if what if there were less jobs and everything was more expensive kind of a crazy way yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh you know a lot of these companies obviously are it's the race to the top to and and it's also our race to the bottom um and i'm just like i'm just thinking of i'm just thinking the cloud strife and i'm thinking of avalanche and barrett and tifa and you know let's we need avalanche where you at you know we need some avalanche now i think about it we need some avalanche to take down the center infrastructure you know what i mean yeah let's get some eco listen i don't want to say the t word i don't want to promote terror no of course not i would never i would never i would activist i would never but cloud strife where you need cloud strife you need barrett for real yeah yeah yeah barrett with the one the mako here's the thing right i know i know i said world peace actually i'm moving down world peace on the list but number one i want an african team to win the world cup oh i want an african team to win the world cup south africa i mean africa beat south korea yeah but not south africa i want these fucking bronze man i want another african team i want morocco morocco okay okay what other chat what other african teams are in i know there's like at least a couple other ones nigeria is not in which always breaks my heart the last few world cups we've not qualified and if no african team wins then i want to turn evil usa let's go well what was that recent stat that happened um somebody can check me on this yeah if somebody can do like a fact check on me right now um i don't know how many you know when we look at our current presidential political situation we you know we're very worried about outsiders coming into our country we want to keep our country pure yeah you know yeah and when um i think there's a certain number of immigrants that have been left in or that have been let in in the last couple of i don't know how many time periods but like something like 95 percent of the immigrants that were let in were white south africans you can't even like eon musk is like hey people it's it's one of those like it's a it's a factual thing i forget the percentage i forget it but it was like an overwhelming amount of no we're still letting like people in but okay well how do they look oh my god you know well they don't have melanin and it's just you know it's a great time to be living in right now Great time.

8:13Yeah, I was playing last night on my AYN Thor. I was playing, I was using GameNative to play Slay the Spire 2. Oh, how's that? Dang, what a good game. It's been by the two rocks, but just really cool that GameNative 1.0 is fully out. And obviously they're going to keep on improving it. GameNative is the, I believe it's from GameSir. Or did GameSir create GameHub? It's one of those weird things. But Game Hub and Game Native are competing. Like, we could get your Steam games to work on ARM devices, like, you know, little Android devices or whatever. And Game Native hit 1.0 recently. And it's working out pretty well.

8:57Like, a lot of games that you may have had frame rate issues with may have been solved. You still can't play, like, crazy, intense games. But, like, playing Silksong now on it super smoothly. Dude, I'm so excited. I pre-ordered it in AYN Thor. And I'm sure I'll get it by 2030. but I'm really excited to get it because that's my dream is to be able to have something to play Steam games that I can fit on my pocket and have on the BART I just want to be on the train out in public and then be like I want to play a thing of Slay the Spire or Mugenics or whatever and just be able to whip it out and go you can't put your Steam Deck in my pocket Cloud Save worked so the Cloud Save out after I was done you know opening up on my Steam Deck and it was still there really really cool stuff so that's the good news That's the good news.

9:41Let's get in to the bad news. Of course, if you're watching live, you can be a part of the show by super chatting in over on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. We couldn't do this without our producers over on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney the Somme Twining, and Lax Nomad. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have five stories today. A Breaker's Starting with our number one, Bungie announces layoffs as it admits Destiny 2 fell short of expectations. This is Tom Phillips at IGN.

10:21Destiny developer Bungie will lose a significant number of employees as part of brutal sounding layoffs that will include, quote, most of the Destiny team and some marathon team members. PlayStation CEO Herman Holst has confirmed. In a public blog post, Pulse described this decision as difficult and painful, but, quote, necessary to align the studio's resources with its current priorities and long-term goals, end quote. The news follows the recent ending of new content for Destiny 2 and amid a lackluster player numbers for new launch marathon. I think they just meant lackluster. Hulse's statement claims that, quote, multiple alternatives were explored before the layoffs were finalized, though offers no suggestion of what these might be.

11:08On Bungie's Destiny franchise, Hulse calls the series remarkable, but simply acknowledges that Destiny 2 is no longer receiving new content. There's no suggestion of anything else being planned. One report claimed that a Destiny 2 relaunch rebranded as Destiny Infinity was discussed, but ultimately dismissed. on marathon hulse described the fledgling extraction shooter as an important part of our portfolio though also suggests its team which sounds like it will be the only team left within bungie will also work on other projects well marathon remains an important part of our portfolio and we will continue to support the team as they build on the strong foundation established in season one and two and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects hulse says while it's too early to discuss we are encouraged by the creativity and opportunities that lie ahead, end quote.

11:57Today's layoffs will also impact a smaller number of PlayStation's own staff, whose roles were linked to supporting Bungie's operations. In its own statement published via social media, Bungie confirmed its employees would suffer layoffs as the company was reorganized. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier has stated that Bungie's own studio head, Justin Truman, is stepping down. Bungie's own statement on the job losses lies below in full. And I'll read it here. Quote, With great sadness, we are announcing a reduction in force as we reorganize Bungie. As the leaders of Bungie, past and present, we recognize Destiny 2 fell short of expectations these past several years.

12:37Following our final content update to Destiny 2, and with our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size. We know this decision has a profound impact on the people affected, their families, friends, and teammates. While these changes are necessary to best position the studio now and for the future, that does not lessen the difficulty of this moment or the impact it has on those affected. Later, we will share more about that future with you all, but today is not that day. Today, we wish to extend our gratitude and compassion to every member of the Bungie team who has been impacted and to those who remain.

13:18Thank you so much. We hope you will do the same. Bungie. End quote. Andy, please care for these people. You got to care for them. Please care for them. Care for these people that we're putting out on the streets right now. That's what today's about. We have to honor their legacy. Yeah. And if you don't care for them, frankly, you're fucked up. How dare you not care for them? How dare you not care for these people that we're putting out a job? That we're taking away their benefits. Do you wonder if we'll eventually get number counts on any of this? um because i don't know what the bungie team number was as of as the most recent round of layouts which was like last year-ish i believe like yeah i believe yeah quite a few years ago i think we're talking about 800 and something employees for bungie but yeah i don't know what we were at last year this i mean they're saying the entire destiny team here so that's a lot of people and then some of the marathon team and then even people supporting bungie in the playstation ecosystem so that's a lot of people i'm seeing a lot of estimated like 400 ish it was rumored to be 400 out of the 800 laid off um that is like legitimately still an asinite amount of people like i can't believe that that's how big bungie ever was and that's how big destiny is it's obviously a big machine that you keep on having to feed yeah and it's it's it's not much harder to break down than like it's a very very simple thing games are extremely expensive to make now why because people are being paid a lot more now why because everything else is more expensive and it just kind of like it it's the it's that it's that domino meme games taking longer to make and so now you're paying people for longer development time yeah you're paying them more for longer development times not to mention like you know the amount of fidelity the amount like everything that you're putting into these video games the scopes have increased right which is also causing the long development times but if you take a studio located in seattle an expensive place that's an expensive place to live um and i you know i'm pretty sure bungie is uh all remote like i think they did allow all remote as of oh i don't know or did they make the mandate to like you have to come back i don't know if they had a mandate they definitely have i'm fairly sure they had a lot they have a lot of people working remotely um and maybe that helps things i i really it really just comes down to like it's it's just like this is going to sound like i'm just making it a little bit too simple or whatever, but it's like the world economy sucks, therefore these layoffs happen.

16:05And there's a lot of steps in between. Yeah, there's a whole lot. But, you know, it costs so much to make these games. These employees arguably still don't really get paid enough. Like, you know, you could make the case that they should be paid more in a lot of cases. but all of these moving parts just equal to are we seeing a return on investment are we going to make our investors happy we don't want them to pull out there you know but we don't want them to sell we need them to stick with us therefore we must keep on you know and we know wall street loves layoffs and that's that you know that's another big thing like whenever whenever layoffs happen people get really really stoked in wall street um and you see like stock prices will rise whenever there's like a layoff or whatever yeah and and that ultimately does suck as well and there's so many things that equal all of this to go and like man but this this is like my passion and my art that i care about and it's it's just a it's it's a these are they're just numbers on a stat sheet and and it's a bummer because you know i've talked it to death at this point but But you're killing the industry.

17:22And that sounds like I'm over-exaggering, but you are quite legitimately killing the industry because talented people that are up and coming will no longer want to work in this industry because it's so volatile and it's impossible to work there. And they will maybe make their own things off to the side and they will not join your company. Therefore, you're losing out on possible new talent. And then the veterans that have been there for 15, 20 years, the people that are responsible for creating the chemistry, for creating these systems, they end up either getting laid off or going, this is too much.

17:59I have moved my family four times in the last five years. We can't do this anymore. I'm going to go find something else in a different line of work because, again, it's just it's too volatile of an industry right now. And you are going to, I think a lot of these big companies are going to find themselves with a big lack of talent because people are not going to trust them anymore. Like, why would you want to work for a company and feel, how would you work for a company and feel safe like this? You know, like this is every day. It's every week we are hearing these things. And even the most, the people with the most amount of money, there is no safety there whatsoever.

18:42Yeah, I'd extrapolate that and say, why would you even work for an industry that has this, right? Like, we're seeing it all over the place with video games. And you lose out on so much talent because of that. So much talent is leaving the workforce, whether it's because they're being forced out, because they're getting laid off or fired, or whether it's because they're like, I can't hang with this anymore because it's such a volatile industry. I'm going to find somewhere that's a bit more secure and also that's probably going to pay me better than making video games is going to pay me. when this news popped I went over to Jason Schreier's YouTube because this man's been a YouTuber for a month and he already has a video for everything the first video he uploaded was about Destiny and how we got to where we're at with Destiny so I gave that a list and it's a 20 minute video every episode we're shouting out Jason Schreier it's because he's a really knowledgeable dude and does a really great job but I watched an episode that he did on the French Revolution I know he did for everything and then he did a big deep dive on Breaking Bad it was crazy but one of the things that he had mentioned in regards to destiny specifically is when you're talking about we're talking about the the games industry and how bad it's gotten in terms of what you need in order to be successful and what you need in order to how much budgets have ballooned and all this stuff right and part of it comes back to what we're talking about as far as workforce how much it costs to pay your workforce locations in which it costs a lot to pay your workforce we're talking about places like san francisco or seattle one of the things he also mentioned was when you're talking about when bungie was under activision and when they were in the process of green lighting destiny and if you remember going back there was that promise of we want to make a 10-year game we want to make a game that's going to last a decade we want to we had these grand ambitions when they're green lighting that the entire budget for that i believe was 500 million dollars if you are and that's for that 10-year period right now if you wanted to get started on destiny 3 and you're looking for what let's say four years of development time you're probably talking about 500 million dollars just to get that out the door just to launch that right when we're talking about the years of developing this game and i think a part of this that is really that breaks my heart when it comes to the bungee side of it and breaks my heart when it comes to the industry industry side of it because i think this is what it's like to be in triple a games is not only do you have to make hits you have to predict the future you have to go all right where are we going to be at five years from now who are we impossible who are we going to be battling with for attention yeah for your eyes and for your time and it's i mean you look at it it's still the it's still the the known quantities it's it's call of duty and fortnight and roblox and you know i just you just think back and go damn dude jim ryan really really like signed off on spending that much on something like concord which was a massive gamble but when you gamble you can only you can only gamble and risk like that when when you have when you're playing with house money yeah and in and in that case it's like well they also didn't necessarily see the the the oncoming of ai requiring ram prices to go up and hard work things to like really really fuck up and nobody's more and guess what nobody foresaw covet either right like there are these factors that come in there are these trends that happen when you are i don't know when they got got started on concord but i imagine it's sometime probably soon after overwatch and seeing oh hero shooters are a thing right like marvel rivals came out a couple years ago and still as a hero shooter of course net ease marvel there's so many factors there but we're still we were still kind of in that boom concord probably saw that and went oh yeah let's make a humble one of those and it fucking flopped because it's so impossible to predict where we're going to be at three years from now four years from now what fatigue is going to be like three years from now four years four years from now right i think we're already in a place where there's a little bit of that uh even extraction shooter fatigue but guess what marathon you can't make marathon in a day you got to take years to make marathon and in those years things change cost balloon destiny the state of destiny two changes to where you know final shape comes out and is a success but then quickly after final shape it's like shit we don't this is not hitting anymore right like our player numbers are dwindling for this thing and now we're not making the destiny money and marathon launches and marathon's not an absolute hit so now as bungie if we want to make destiny three we're talking about 500 million dollars in four years that we don't have right we got to lay people off now yeah and you're you know it's again like i like i was just mentioning who are we going to be battling with yeah and it's not just the known qualities it's tiktok it's instagram reels it's youtube those are all these things that are trying to fight for your attention and and your time and all of the all the things you just mentioned are things that were being developed in a time where you just couldn't foresee the future.

23:43And that totally makes sense because not only did things get, I think if they were to have looked at the current climate, they would have said like, somebody dropped a nuke somewhere, right? Like if I look five years in the future and I see what we're going through right now, money-wise and like, oh, whoa, something massive had to have happened, right? And it really is just the AI boom. And you just mentioning, you know, we were talking about it yesterday and have been talking about it for a while. Valve not knowing that this was going to happen to RAM prices. Yeah. And it's a lot of these companies that are going, well, shit, we're really, really struggling.

24:19We can't really find a groove anymore in game development. And then on the same side, they are part of a division that another part of the division of their company is really trying to fast track AI. And they are shooting themselves in their foot. yeah again you know and and then they're going like fuck i'm bleeding all over the carpet how much is the carpet cleaner it's so expensive why because we're shooting ourselves in the foot all the time and that price is going up all the time and it's like you are eating yourself and at some point like i i like i think that the big reset is obviously happening right now and you're going to see so many people try to go build their own things because they just don't trust the industry anymore and they have every reason to not trust the industry um but at least you know things are getting cheaper on xbox right bless oh right but before we talk about that i want to talk to some super chats because a million people wrote in a lot of people have stuff to say about uh bungie and playstation right now aaron lion says sony taking a strategic loss on ps5 in japan makes me optimistic about a refocus on that market at the same time sony needs to fire herman already for massive mismanagement of studios like Bungie yeah I mean there's a there's a lot to talk about as far as the Sony aspect of it right because acquisition when we're talking about let's bring in a big company you hope and pray there's a synergistic reason why you acquire somebody and there is a fostering of that relationship and a not even fostering there is a can't think of the word for it but you're taking care of them that's the thing that you want to see from that and when we're talking about big corporations we're talking about a playstation an xbox an embracer a 10 cent right a lot of these acquisitions there's big money there was big money exchange being exchanged and it comes down to what can you do for us you're not able to do that for us we're laying everybody off like that is what is what it is at the end of the day and so there are there's the doctor strange thing of what does it look like if bungie doesn't get acquired by playstation I get scared of that as well of like does Bungie is Bungie able to sustain itself with what it's doing but at the end of the day like the PlayStation thing didn't help either it seems like here well yeah I mean I I don't think I don't think the budgets would have ballooned had they been not been acquired by PlayStation I think had they not had they been acquired by place or sorry if they stayed independent yeah I should have just said that had they not been acquired by anybody budgets would not have ballooned and they would have never gotten to 800 people in the first place and scope wouldn't have gotten so crazy out of you know and crazy to mismanage and that also would have trained the audience to expect less updates not that the audience would have been like mad about their not about their not being as many updates they just wouldn't have expected it because we're a smaller team and we take a while to make things and that's okay when we are 300 to 400 people 800 people is fucking wild and you know that's not that's not you know it's not only just core developers you know that could be marketing and you know finance and things like that i get it's just that that's just a massive amount of people for a team and i don't know if we will really see numbers like that i know cd project red has a lot of employees um xbox has a lot of employees i don't know if we'll quite see if we'll see a company like bungie have a size of employees like that ever again i don't know if we'll ever do that anymore i'm i so bungie right being acquired i want to say in 2022 by playstation i forget we were where we were at both and like destiny updates and then also the numbers of people at destiny but i was on the i was of the mind of like destiny would have been on on on its way toward this path already like i feel like bungie had a lot of people at that point like i don't know if they hired up by that much i for but i forget where we were at like i wasn't following bungie that closely but i say all that to say that i worry or not even that i worry i would have thought that like bungie would have been acquired by somebody anyway like i don't i don't see bungie as a studio that was like in a place where they were going to be self-sustaining forever because i don't know if destiny was in a place where it could have continued sustaining that suit i think we would have ended up in the same place is what i'm saying yeah i just you know all of the other with all the other variables and factors out there it's also impossible to say yeah um I, you know, and again, I hate to keep on harping on the, you know, the Concord point, but I just, that, that's such a large amount of money for a game that at its heart was an arena shooter.

29:14And that's still the thing that is like the most bewildering thing. Cause I don't, it wasn't like, I guess I'm looking at it more of like Jim Ryan. why did you think an arena shooter would be able to cover the cost cover its own cost like this you know i would say like if you were making if you were trying to make let's say you didn't even own bungee and you were trying to make your big story-based universe that was something like like a destiny where you are your own character it's an epic tale and you're logging in every day for dailies and all that stuff and you're doing quests and there's a raid every whatever you You know, it's like this big sort of event.

29:56But this is an arena shooter. I mean, you look at Overwatch. That's what they were doing. And with Overwatch, it is still like, it is still not a 4v4 capture the flag. You know, like, Overwatch was, obviously they had their own failings with trying to do PvE focused things. But, like, I would also be interested to know what the budget was with Overwatch. because they you know obviously blizzard and activision work a lot differently because they have you know i think of like i think of concord trying to deliver on the promise of a cinematic every two weeks or whatever that was like it's just like whoa dude like for for something that isn't a destiny i just it just seems like an impossibility the fact of the matter is that this is such a trend-based industry right hey pub g and fortnite come out and they have battle royales what happens over the next few years everybody's putting out a battle royale oh hey extraction shooters are a thing everybody puts out an extraction shooter i keep pointing back to when i said disney will make an a or sorry epic will make a disney extraction shooter and then it was then it was reported like a couple months later this is a very easy industry to predict of what our company is going to try right now i'm going to sit here and i'm going to tell you within the next i'll say two to three years well actually you know what within the next year to two years you're going to see more western studios announce genshin impact like games because genshin impact and weathering waves and all these games make so much money coming out of korea and china they are western studios are going to start doing that you're going to see you're going to see licensed ones i don't know what licenses but you're going to see licensed genshin impact style games within the next year or two years i'm going to say free-to-play action rpg gotcha games that's the next thing is going to happen we're going to get so tired of it disney epic we're going to get so tired of it yeah um but that's what they're doing right playstation i go back to be early on on please ps i love you xoxo when we got the report of playstation is working on 10 live service games then a couple years later there was the um their financial report where in the slides they showed that they are allocating 60 of their budget uh to live service games like their first party budget right we're making we're 60 % of that is going towards live service they see the numbers me and you in our audience and just gamers in general a lot of us know oh that shit ain't gonna work because guess what we see the games and we play games and we're like hey fortnite is fortnite you're not gonna come through and take for eat fortnite's lunch overwatch is overwatch right like these feel like such singular um uh versions of what this thing can be companies don't care wallets don't care right they look at that and go ah we need our own because they're making money hand over fist how do we make fortnight money how do we make genjin money how do we make uh car top tarkov money like that's just the way the industry goes and i think part of it tears the industry from the inside out and then you see successes pop up here and there a marvel rivals for example but those only happen here and there those are those are crazy rarities like i don't if if rivals comes out and it's not a marvel property i don't think it succeeds like i'm still shocked that it succeeded to begin with because it's just because of how many things that people already and how many universes and ecosystems people are invested in already uh but again it is that it is that you know domino meme of because this and then you go through 17 steps all these layoffs happen and a lot of space a lot of slots in those steps of the dominoes are the fact that these teams get so big because you are constantly laying people off and we see somebody like square have a lot of success with um with final fantasy we see a lot of other teams have success with with their uh with their ip because they keep the teams around and they have chemistry over years and they work together and they know each other's rhythms and you're not constantly having to teach somebody the new thing and i have four new hires i gotta fuck in and that slows down development time and so like the the big the biggest lesson for all of these companies is when you keep your teams together they make stuff faster yeah and all and the biggest important thing right now is speed of development and instead of that we're gonna now use ai to try to increase that speed and that's going to create a lot of issues because you're dealing with an employee that isn't a person and you're going to try to correct their the the system's mistakes and it just becomes a whole like fucking it just becomes a clusterfuck really and the the moral of the story is if you keep your teams together you have chemistry blessing this wasn't the new york Knicks first time in the playoffs.

34:58Yeah. The last three, four years, they get further and further. The team gets to know each other's rhythms. You know, they also trade Anthony or Randall. I'm liking his first name. You know, they get you start to learn each other and how you work and that's the mark of a good development team. When you have veterans that know the system's inside out and are working with something, you know, we talk about back in the day when bioware is going through so many issues not only it's already hard enough to make a game but when you're fighting something like frostbite in the early days and it's like we are fighting this engine that it's like making the game is hard enough why are we also having to deal with the difficulties of a new engine why can't we just use this other thing or whatever like those are all these little steps that can make your team develop things faster but we can never get to that point because uh round of 100 layoffs round of 50 layoffs here right and that just breaks up all sorts of chemistry and you're never going to find that rhythm unless you allow your teams to to thrive with each other fair enough uh bring in a couple more soup chats before we move on to the next story big hers writes in and says uh we're living in the start of the gaming crash right now and people don't realize it yet hardware prices are cooking the industry i'm gonna say people realize it oh yeah oh well yeah yeah no let me We've been here for, it's not also the start.

36:23No, yeah. It started a few years ago. Yeah. Sergio says, birthday tax, do you all have any experience with using a Raj Ally X with a dock for the TV? Not sure if Roger mentioned that did this. I don't. No, I've only done that with my Steam Deck. Yeah, I've just done that with my Steam Deck. But I don't see why that'd be an issue. I imagine it'd be easy to do. Yeah. And I imagine it'd be pretty, it'd look good. Alvaro says Apple has raised prices on most of his products due to increased memory demand. No good news, Andy. Yeah, no good news. And it's all, you know, data centers. We need to make things faster.

36:59We need to cook the planet faster. We need to put people out of jobs more is really the big sort of thing we're going for right now. Greg has entered the building. What's up, Greg? I'm listening live, quote unquote, out there.

37:10Nick Scarpino:So I don't know how far behind it. I've put my ROG ally on the TV before via a doc. Very simple. Very easy. is it a PC gamer yeah it does look good I mean it looks better than my steam deck did back in the day you know okay but I mean still doesn't look great obviously as Andy knows they're trying to push a lot of graphics out there that's when I go that razor blade 16 what's up and then blessing says what are you playing on that it sounds like a jet oh my god it's it's a warm fit this is pointed directly at me so it's like getting a warm fan it's like having a space here right next to me a laptop fan you should have seen how impressed Greg or uh Mike was when we We were playing Kiln the other day for the charity stream because Michael's like, all right, Greg, I invited you.

37:51And then Greg, like, accepted the invite. Michael's like, oh, my God. I was like, oh, he knows the shift tab, right? Like, he knows the Steam shift tab. He's getting smarter. And Michael's like, no, no, no. He did the Windows G for the Windows Game Bar. Like, that's how advanced Greg is right now in the PC gaming space. It's really like, that's how you know the world is ending. The crash is happening. if i if i walk by if i walk by greg's desk and i see him playing valorant keyboard and mouse i'm snapping his neck because that's not greg

38:25he's being tied up somewhere jameson peter says 6668 refugees have been given citizen citizenship this year 6665 are white south africans so thank god deis over yeah i mean thank god they they fucking killed that we're still letting them in guys we're still learning because you know never mind yeah um let's see crimson 96 60 says andy do a grito for mexico winning 3-0 yesterday

38:56sorry audio listeners we're gonna move on because we have a lot more show left and we're already far into the show uh so let's talk about xbox and the price going up but before we talk about that let me talk to you about patreon.com slash kind of funny and youtube.com slash kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors.

39:15Nick Scarpino:This episode is brought to you by High on Life 2. Just four months after the February release of High on Life 2, the Squatch Games team is back with the Kinda Funny crew. Last time the dev stopped by, the game hadn't been released, which forced them into a very painful, agonizing secrecy. Today, though, the NDAs are off, and they can pretty much say whatever they want without getting yelled at. Mostly, they really want to talk about the following, though. A demo is now available for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as of this week. Also, High on Life 2 is on sale for the first time as part of Steam's Summer Sale, which kicks off June 25th.

39:50Nick Scarpino:High on Life 2 hits Nintendo Switch 2 on July 1st. Those are in no particular order of importance to us, but for those of you listening, feel free to rank them yourselves and argue about them in the comments. This episode's brought to you by Factor. Sometimes hunger strikes and you are just exhausted, or you're hosting shows back to back to back, and you just don't have it in you to set up and prepare the whole meal you thought you'd have time for. That's why so many of us here at Kind of Funny love Factor. Factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without the shopping or cooking.

40:23Nick Scarpino:On many occasions, Factor's completely saved Greg and Jen when they needed it most. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods, and healthy fats. Factor bans 175-plus ingredients. No artificial colors, no sweeteners, no high-fructose corn syrup, no refined seed oils, just nutrient-dense food. For more choices to better nutrition, that's why 97 % of customers say that Factor helped them live a healthier life. Feel the difference no matter your routine. Head to factormeals.com slash kindoffunny50off and use code kindoffunny50off to get 50 % off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026.

41:02Nick Scarpino:See website for more details. And we're back. Let me tell you, we spent 30 minutes on that story number one conversation. I saw a Reddit thread, which I should stay off Reddit and not read comments, but I do it anyway sometimes. Of course. I like to feel pain. And there was one Reddit that was like, they only spent a minute and a half talking about the Bungie layoffs when it was like a rumor that wasn't like an official thing. And let me tell you, you guys make the world worse by using layoffs as a way to get into console wars. It's so annoying. I just want to put that out there. Some of y 'all are insufferable with that.

41:35Put your energy somewhere else. Put your energy somewhere else. Be good out there. Let's talk about Xbox story number two. The Xbox price is going up. I'm reading directly. We have to talk about this, though, like 30 seconds less than PlayStation. I know. You got to make sure this is going longer. We got to make that dude happy. Or else we're all PlayStation. You're on the clock. Start the timer. Put up a timer. Effective August 1st, 2026, we will be updating prices worldwide. the price of x the price of xbox consoles will increase by 100 us dollars for the 512 gigabyte models and 150 for the one terabyte models will also be sunsetting our two terabyte model um i'm going to come back to their wording on that because they word that really weird they don't say xbox series s or x they call it the 512 gigabyte model which i find a little bit weird but i digress last october we increased xbox all cap uh console price by twenty dollars to seventy dollars in the u.s we hoped another price increase would not be necessary and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options unfortunately console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5 times and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027 the entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis but the effects are particularly hard on consoles who did this who started who could have done such a thing who's yeah hot yeah fucking hot dog man costume we're looking for the guy who did this ah i see what i think you should leave yeah it's a good show looking on his name can't think of the can't think of the actor's name tim robinson tim robinson anytime somebody does that where they're like i can't think of their name it then infects me not robinson i would have known his name uh if you hadn't remembered it unlike phones computers speakers and other consumer devices consoles are typically not sold at a profit but instead for less than they cost to make today we're also sharing programs to make xbox consoles more accessible they got buy now play later we made it easier for players to use buy now play later options on eligible xbox hardware purchases through microsoft stores making it possible to break up your payment into predictable short-term interest-free installments to have interest-free financing players purchasing eligible xbox hardware through amazon can take advantage of zero percent apr financing for up to 12 months giving players more flexibility with lower monthly payments and more budgeting control previously played consoles we're working with retail partners on new programs to provide previously played consoles at lower prices players who are ready to upgrade or no longer use their consoles will be able to trade it in with participating retail partners for cash or store credit those consoles will then be made available at lower prices for players and then finally certified refurbished consoles xbox certified refurbished consoles are available at microsoft stores for up to 100 off msrp xbox series s where they finally actually call it the name uh remains the lowest cost way for console players to enjoy the biggest hits this year including assassin's creed black flag re-synced call of duty modern warfare 4 gears of war e-day grand theft auto 6 halo campaign evolved and madden nfl 27 name and games Madden NFL 27 What the fuck are we doing What are we doing Andy So I wonder if there will be My mind immediately goes to the PS5 Price increases Sorry to the Redditor God they're back to Playstation now They love talking about Playstation Or they're not talking shit enough about them No actually this is good for them Because I'm talking shit about Playstation now I think back to those price increases The most recent ones and one of our homies, Chris Anka, and I know a lot of other people in the Kind of Funny community said, shit, I got to get a PS5 Pro before the prices go up, before the official price takes effect, right?

45:25Because we had just gotten the notice, hey, we're going to be increasing prices. So, you know, I don't want to pay$900 for that PS5 Pro whenever it comes out. I'll buy it right now for the I think$700 cost? For the PS5? No, the PS5 Pro at the time. It was$7.50 or$7.50, right before the price went up. Gotcha. So I know Chris Anka, one of our friends, got one. And I know a lot of other people in the Kind of Funny community were like, shit, I got to pull the trigger now before this happens. I wonder if we'll see something similar in that vein. Because on Xbox's website, the prices still are not changed.

46:03Yeah, effective August 1st. Yeah, you could get the Series S for$3.99. hopefully between now and August 1st all the data centers just gone meteors fall on all of them and they're like actually we don't gotta do that we have all of our RAM back dude it's so disheartening looking at the cost breakdown shout out Shinobi602 on Twitter who the homie broke it down got to hang out with him at the blood of Don Walker event does he look like his profile picture the dude from Seinfeld Newman what does he look like Which nobody like. Don't worry about it. Just tell me. Don't worry about it. What race is he?

46:41Don't worry about it. How tall. I say he, but like. You don't even know. Their gender. I don't know. Whoa. They're a cool person. Wow. Yeah. Mysterious. Yeah. So the cost breakdown goes like this. The Series S 512 gigabyte is now$500, which breaks my heart because let me tell you, I've been team Series S. I talk all the time about how I bought a Series S for my nephew when it was like 350. It like this was the thing I would I know people were like oh they don't know the difference oh but Baldur's Gate 3 couldn't do split screen I'm like who cares they're playing Fortnite I could buy anybody a Series S as a gift and like justify it you know Mike the nephews are playing Fortnite and they're playing It Takes Two.

47:21Nice yeah good for them yeah I told my sister to get them game pass and all that stuff I don't know if they still pay for it I'm not checked in with that yeah i think they're onto the switch now yeah but maybe maybe their rocket money told them to cancel it yeah yeah five hundred dollars for the xbox series s that's heartbreaking man that is that's heartbreaking that is insane to think that 500 is the cost that when a console comes out you go oh man 500 yeah we just would have been great at four or five hundred or four or 450 or whatever and it was$299 $300 not even$350 $299 yeah $500 for the much weaker console is completely asinine it's unbelievable so the series S2 1TB is now$600 and then the series X damn that's the series S1TB the series X 1TB digital is now$750 I mean hey you're getting a much powerful console for 250 more when you think about it that way you know I don't know I'm speechless wow I feel like I'm being pranked right now um so I mean let me break this down for you right here bless all right let me see here one sec all right what if i told you blessing that sell it to me you you know i could hey i could get you in this car here i get i could get you in this car and you could take home this xbox series x console right now with a controller hold on let me can i pay for it via interest-free financing or can i do a buy now pay later plan yeah hold on let me raise the price to eight uh maybe like 900 we'll call it 900 i'm gonna throw in like a couple of accessories and with taxes and things like that okay what's the package here don't worry about it i'm working at best buy right now all right uh but i'll tell you what with the best buy credit card 37 a month for two years come on oh 40 bucks a month that's like 40 bucks for two years coffees well what's the how many games am i getting with that automatically because that certainly is a big bundle right i'm getting like 10 games there you might get a you might get a oh we have this dinex usb cable that i can throw in there and i also have uh this insignia hdmi cable but yeah i'm calling it you know okay so what's 750 plus tax oh man around like 850 right i'm throwing 100 i don't know yeah 815 820 yeah 900 ish 900 ish ish yeah i'd say so i'm paying for that over the course of two years 40 bucks a month yeah think about that that's nothing to you i mean it's not that's a budget game that's a game every month that's a budget game every month nah man that's nothing if i wait two months i can buy zelda hockerino time probably a free usb micro the one from like 15 years ago here's the thing i you know options for buying things are great i would recommend against doing a buy now play later for or play later buy now pay later for a console i do like that they're doing like the refurbished stuff and like the previously played stuff previously played console the more you can help out people with those kind of purchases the better but man man you are man you're you're really looking for that silver lining i appreciate that i do it you know i appreciate that we're trying not to be all doom and gloom i don't want to be all doom and gloom but um no you're right it is um it is a very very sad extremely depressing state of affairs for not only the whole world, but for the escape for the hobby to get away from the news.

51:02I don't want to, like, you know, I don't want to think about that shit right now. I just want to play the game. I just want to, okay, well, you're going to be playing on that. If you haven't gotten a new console now, you probably have way less money in the bank now because of everything just being more expensive. And it's way tougher to get one now. so like it's just it's just everything compounds on each other in a very depressing way because there's not there's not one thing you can really point to in the world that says but where you go like all right well this is like this so that kind of balances things out no everything is bad everywhere like it's it's it's such a bummer man um i'm trying to think of like you know is there you know that maybe you wait for a sale maybe you wait for some maybe you wait for meteor say hit all the data centers and then we get all the ram back to lower prices or whatever um yeah it's there's really no silver lining here for me it's just like everything sucks the console that everybody makes fun of the most in the industry for being the toughest to optimize for is now $500 fucking dollars before tax USD That's not Canadian That's you know Yeah it costs like $1500 Canadian dollars and five Bottles of maple syrup But if they punch the wall in anger From the high price Free healthcare If they punch the wall They're very polite Yeah this sucks so much Fucking ass It's just a really really shitty situation and they can probably get away with it because gta 6 is coming out later that later in the year plays best on playstation 5 find out why it plays best i know i plays best your haptics hey they have playstation 5 pro enhanced on there i mean the marketing partnership you know what legitimately if you go to your playstation app the logo is gta colors now yeah on the playstation app if you've updated it if you go to the app it's they have vice city colors on the place PlayStation is leaning into it all the way.

53:12I mean, it's going to be the savior for a lot of, like, people are banking on this gargantuan event. But earlier when you asked me about, like, do you have anything good happening in your life? What's some good news? Honestly, like, if we get the full, like, readout of whatever GTA 6 does on PS5 Pro with enhancement, like, what's that pisser doing? What's the pisser doing? I will be so excited to get great. God damn, man. It's beautiful. I will be so excited to get some awesome news about, Hey, on PS five pro. We're not limited to 30 or we're doing, you know, 60 with this, you know, at this resolution.

53:55Like, Oh, I'm so excited about that. That's the only real kind of nice thing on the horizon. Kevin, can you bring up that PlayStation app logo again? Cause this is kind of like when you wear the artist's shirt to their concert. It's like, you kind of glazing. like is this not glazing you're not wrong wolverine is coming out you're not wrong that's your game but i can make it yellow and black and it's not like wolverine is like some nobody character you know what i mean you're so right game this fall so i've never done this for any of your dude if i'm insomniac i'm fucking pissed off right now i'm so pissed off if i'm insomniac or even fucking sony santa monica yeah it's like you didn't do this for the last god of war bro i I saw a lot of people on Twitter going like, I go to the, when I open up my PlayStation, a big chunk of my screen is GTA six stuff or whatever.