GTA 6 Pre-Order Campaign The Most Successful Ever?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 07.16.26

0:00It's Kinda Funny's Patreon Pledge Month. Support us at patreon.com slash kinda funny. We really appreciate it. Today's gaming stories include analysts predict GTA 6 sales, more of the Xbox layoffs, aftermath, and some neat Nintendo updates. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily.

0:26what's up and welcome to kind of funny games daily for thursday july 16th 2026 of course i'm your host tim gettys i'm joined by blessing at aoye jr good day tim good day to you my first games daily in like it feels like 15 days i was gonna say i feel like it's been a while since i've hosted with you in particular i was off for six days so i think that goes a long way yes and then there's weekends and then there's all this and then i was gone for a little bit as well too that's true that's true yeah so yeah this is nice did you already talk about pokemon go and all that stuff well games today oh it's going to be a 10-year retrospective of pokemon go uh with uh andrew goldfarm and uh the director of the game that's really cool like vp of product for pokemon go is going to be joining us in the studio really exciting awesome guy named michael i say all that and he is fancy he's very fancy but he's also just a cool dude that we hang out with at pier 39 all the time catching pokemon all right oh that's pretty legit it's pretty legit that's really

1:24Blessing Adeoye Jr.:cool was he able to go to new york to the thing that of course oh yeah yeah yeah oh that's really cool going out there with him too so yeah it's like that's where we asked him was like hey do you want to come on the show he's like yeah this was a lot easier than i expected i think i knew that you were going to new york for this thing but i don't think i internalized they were going to new york for this thing so when i saw you posting about it i was like hold up this looks way more cool than i thought oh it was crazy dude like yeah i can't wait to hear i want to save it because yeah i want to save it more for the show but i mean dude it was uh one of the craziest most special experiences of my life yeah it was definitely the there were 2 000 people here and we are all shaking and on the brink of tears for how hype this is and like how much this moment means like to the people it was it was wild while you're doing that i was also doing a pokemon theme thing that I already talked about, but I went to the Pokemon Fossil Museum in Chicago.

2:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You didn't talk to me about it. I didn't talk to you about it. Was it cool? It was really cool. It was really fun. It's definitely something you bring a kid to, though. It was me and another friend. You have one of those. That's the thing. It's like, I don't know how long it's going to be around, but I'm sure it's something that they'll sunset bring back all those things. But whenever Sammy is around like five years old, six years old, I'm sure whenever they open it in San Francisco or whatever, you got to take her there. Dusting off the Kabuto's. Is that what they're doing? i mean that's one of the things that you could i not that's pretty cool so literally but there was a place where toward the end of it there were interactable things where it's like you open a thing and then you can kind of see the fossil outline and then there's another thing where you can hold up a flashlight to like find certain things but it was very much kiddie stuff that me and my other 32 year old friend weren't going to do um but it was still really fun to just go around see all of the inspirations for the different like fossil pokemon and see that they actually have origins as far as oh kabuto was really based off of this very specific fossil oh the helix fossils this thing right like all respect to helix god respect to helix god like seeing those one for man pokemon what's that called which plays pokemon which plays pokemon legendary there's there will never be anything like that never again not to derail so hard man how wild is it that like there are so many things that pokemon like pokemon number one franchise in the world of course with money and with all the stuff they obviously have done literally everything it's like there's back in the day would be like an example of a thing doing everything is like oh it had its own cereal pokemon has had its own every type of food that there possibly is pokemon has had any brand any product they've done a collab they figured it out pokemon is always relevant but every three years pokemon drops something where it's like this is no one's ever done this before nobody's ever been like this before everybody on earth is obsessed with it it's crazy man here we are 10 years into pokemon go which i think is probably the second biggest example of yeah pokemania besides the original yeah outbreak outbreak but yeah the pokemon museum was a really fun time already talked about it so people were but i think you would i think you would enjoy going there especially taking samey there would be a cool thing yeah definitely cannot wait to go there what's this kev pokemon there's no collaboration between pokemon and fortnight you're right that's the one thing they haven't done i don't think you can do that i don't think fortnight's big enough i don't think fortnite's got this stuff i love that if you're watching live be part of the show by super chatting on youtube.com slash kind of funny games we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny so thank you to carl jacobs omega buster delaney the psalm 20 and lax nomad but now let's begin with what is and forever will be the roper report it's time for some news we got seven stories today

4:58Blessing Adeoye Jr.:an episode of of a gamescast that would not make any sense but i think would just be a fun thing to do with me and you ranking pokemon things oh i'm hella in just ranking pokemon things jesse vitale just a couple days ago posted a lot remember those gold-plated pokemon cards from burger king from the 90s and i'm like yes of course i do jesse who doesn't come on man who but yeah no i like that it's like what are we putting what are we ranking higher between pokemon cards and the pokemon anime you know what i mean yeah like whoa we're going that broad like we're going anime versus cards i mean we'd have to figure out the parameters because yeah you go so broad to where it's like okay this is kind of crazy i mean both have their highs and both have their lows you know but that yeah and the thing is like the anime i think is way more i think a place in time thing for people actually that's not true because like every kid i was gonna make the argument that like the trading cards it's like the kids just grow up with that stuff and it's just as special to them no matter what generation it is yeah it's true for the anime too these kids love the damn anime it's like which means more to you pokemon go or either of those two things oh man i mean this is a fun episode if you yeah yeah like so important in my life but like at the end of the day i couldn't put it over the anime like the anime was like yeah was my life and like especially leading to the last couple years when ash won and like beat leon and all that like how emotional that made me like the anime would have to be the the top dog of those okay and then the trading cards it's like i have so many memories and like throughout my life with them but it's a bit more neck and neck i'd say between go and here's the thing i go would have to be second there's and i'll talk about this later but there's something about the community in the real world aspects like actually being out in the world yeah the things i've discovered in real life because of pokemon go like friends i've made because of pokemon go it's different man oh yeah and i'm saying that in 2026 you know like not just like the nostalgia of 2016 yeah i think that's the thing is when you think about when you think about why you're nostalgic for something right like the experience that we had watching the anime we've we've had all of our lives to think back to how formative that that was for us but when i think about how much you devoted to pokemon go in your modern age there's no like it has to be pokemon go i mean dude there's no way as a kid you watch more of the anime than you've played more pokemon go i walked 40 miles in 90 plus degree new york city yeah that's crazy that's crazy pokemon go like if you're ranking god this has been an episode let's just save it for an episode i like this let's work on it uh but gta 6 has the strongest pre-order campaign on record and is on track to sell between 37 and 51 million units in week one analytics firm says this comes from chris scullion at vgc gta 6 pre-order campaigns the strongest on record so far according to new zoo the video game market data research and insights firm has released new analysis on the first week of pre-orders based on digital spending data according to its analysis around 180 million was spent on digital pre-orders across the u.s and the five largest european markets during the last week of june by using the player's distribution of gta 5 as a guide new zoo has estimated that the total global spend was around 260 million in the first week of pre-orders oh my god and 260 million dollars one week of pre-orders that kicks off the strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded.

8:29The companies also use this data to predict first week sales for GTA 6 when it's released in November. According to NewZoo, hit titles usually follow three sales curves. The brand new IP, which has low pre-orders and takes off after reviews come in. The sequel with performance uncertainty where players wait to see if a specific sequel is good before buying. And the proven sequel, where more pre-orders are booked early. The firm suggests GTA 6 will follow the proven sequel model and predict that the first week pre-order sales account for roughly 5.8 % of the total sales by the end of the game's actual launch week.

9:03With that model in mind, New Zoo believes the game's on pace to reach$4.5 billion in sales by the end of its first week of sale, meaning roughly 51 million copies sold. I'm going to say that one more time. $4.5 billion sales by the end of its first week on sale. 4.5 plus. That's doing some quick, I'm dumb man, Tim, napkin math. all the Avengers movies combined. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Maybe just Infinity War and Endgame. But like, well, I just don't, I don't believe that we're going to get to the 4.5 billion numbers in that first week. We'll get there eventually. But like, I mean, I, I don't know, man.

9:43Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Because when they talk about, finish the article because there's context. The company notes that because this GTA 6 is the most anticipated game of all time, its pre-orders could be more front-loaded than usual. But that suggests, but suggests that even if this is taken into account, the game could still be looking at around 3.3 billion in sales by the end of its first week or around 37 million units sold yeah so yeah which that seems way more believable oh yeah 3.3 billion dollars which is still way more believable we just shave it off a cool billy and it's like that's my that that works though it's more so me thinking about the copy sold of like the 51 million copies sold versus 37 million copies i know at that point we're talking about fuck you copies sold but in gta in the first is this first week right yeah first week of sale if gta 6 sells 51 million copies what's what's what's crazier than a pizza bit i'll eat my hat yeah i'll find a hat and i'll eat it this isn't it's crazy now here's the thing that's crazier about it though bless uh-huh 30 let's go with the lower numbers sure let's do a conservative 37 million conservative 37 million where's 37 million coming from because this game's only on playstation 5 and xbox yeah that's crazy to think about like the full potential audience is only what would it be we don't officially know i mean 100 millions but wouldn't that total be like 200 million let's just say that sure 200 million that's over that's definitely overshooting but i think you're not that's not crazy though so then maybe 180 million sure yeah 150 150 between 150 200 whatever you want to use yeah yeah let's let's do 200 just just yeah just to like prove my point even more 200 million potential sales and on the low end we're thinking 37 million first week think about that percentage think about that attach rate yeah that is crazy actually that is actually really nuts to think about so that's the one thing that i'm like i believe this but like Like that is incredibly wild.

11:49Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I think the tough thing about this data is that you are applying data based off of trends for something that is so unprecedented. Yes. So I think that's where it gets foggy of. That's why it's so like the 51 million copies obviously is them like being like, hey, this is one for one with the model of like the proven sequel. This is what we wouldn't add out to. But yeah, GTA 6 is so unprecedented that I don't think you can. you can't you can't use already existing data and apply that to this which is why the 37 million is the where i lean more lean towards more but even that i'm like i don't know if we're hitting that first week even just putting that into to like reference of other things like where where's cyberpunk at right cyberpunk they just started their sales right yeah like in the cyberpunk might be up to 40 million yeah okay one week ago 40 million oh i nailed that shit yeah one week ago 40 million cyberpunk like a game that came out 2020 that has been released on last gen yeah last gen but then got taken off last gen but then released on current gen but it's on switch it was a switch to launch title getting that boost there one of the highest selling of the switch 2's launch right like getting to this 40 million and again it's on all of the systems and like it has got to a point now that it is kind of revered as this like mega win game it got the the boost from um cyber runners is that what it's called yeah no cyber edge runners edge runners edge runners on netflix it's like there was so much juice there and you're telling me gta 6 is like oh we're nipping on the heels of that 37 in the first week in the first week that's like one of the ones where you sell that much in the first week and you're like ah shit like we just sold we sold everything in the first week how many people how many more people can you sell to in the months after that yeah because okay we got to get these these you got to get online out quick get these shark cards into people's hands.

13:42Yeah, exactly. Using kind of rough logic that we were a second ago of this. It's like, we're talking about in the first week, almost a third of all potential owners of this game. Yeah. Owning the game. Yeah. That's crazy.

14:01Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I can't help but doubt it. I mean, yeah. I mean, with the math that they're using, for sure, the 51 million, I doubt. the 37 million i have a little bit of a hard time but it's like with gta 6 what was i thinking you know what i mean like 20 25 million yeah which is still which is still crazy pokemon scarlet and violet yeah was um in the first three days that sold 10 million 20 well in the first three days okay but well but i think the 20 was that week i don't know when it hit the 20 but i don't know very very quickly i think it was a week so a week pokemon scarlet violet in 20 that was just switch one so we are dealing with actually fairly similar numbers sure the ps5 and xbox together right um but there was two versions of that game yeah so that helped add a lot of people buy both and nintendo level attachment rate yeah which is not to be underrated exactly and it's pokemon so it's possible do you are you surprised because when you name out the cyberpunk number even that is like that's so impressive do you get surprised we don't see more gta clones nowadays like more open world drive around steel cars missions the the era of the gta clone was very the ps2 era right because like the ps2 gta's were a lot more clonable i think that uh we hit a point with gta 5 where it's like oh no it's gta 5 is not clonable because it does take rockstar money to make like you can't just you know put something out that's like it and if you try it's saints row yeah but yeah but and you're right about that but i wonder if there's an in-between space between saints row the last one and gta 5 because like obviously yes to make gta 5 that's a level of budget level of time and money that most developers cannot afford but i look at a cyberpunk obviously very high level budget very anticipated video game also incredibly good video game uh and it took time to get there but they got there um but yeah 40 million units i look at something not a gta clone but an open world game taking place in the city spider-man obviously you have the ip marvel it's a different kind of game but i don't know i feel like there's i'm giving three examples of special cases yeah but i feel like it's something worth trying out at least yeah right like but the problem there problem is what does that actually mean like what what are the elements that we're cloning is it just an open world with things to do open world cities yeah open world cities with things to do i mean like they they tried with watchdogs it just didn't click and it's not like watchdogs are bad games you know like watchdogs were i would say good to great games even like depending on which one you're talking about and like i i think that there are more great watchdog games than not i don't know about that maybe i think watchdogs one in legion were not that great i'm gonna give uh greats a strong word but like a between a seven and an eight a 7.5 you know good to great good to great maybe watchdogs 2 watchdogs 2 was probably like an eight out of ten game yeah that's where i'd go whereas the other two might be like that i don't remember no legion was anything like that and watchdogs one one i know like that but let me what are watchdogs two sales i'm looking this up and what other what are the other open world city games that we can think of in the last 10 years i mean besides saints row obviously that did not open world city mafia three yeah but that was that might have been over 10 years ago yeah well yeah it was around 10 years ago um watchdogs sold over 10 million copies worldwide like that's that's yeah fantastic yeah i'm gonna double jack the yakuza is not really open world though yeah it's like open zone open zone yeah yeah i mean it is interesting like where where are the true crime streets of chicago you know what i mean that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying i would chat is throwing out stuff the recent lego batman says mellow fellow i mean sure we're different kind of example right card brings up a great one mine's eye but in like here's the thing right what if the what if the formula what is what if the secret formula to making an open world city game super successful is making it at least a good see but i think all the good ones we're naming are selling crazy therein lies the problem like i do legitimately it's like i think mine's eye was like oh we can do gta and it's like no you can't yeah right like that is the problem samson samson came out also recently the fuck is samson don't fucking look at me and make up video you know what's funny is as i said samson i was like did i make that shit up samson that was like the game um it was i previewed this game it was the fucking open world city game that came out i'm pretty sure this year melee combat kind of had some max pain vibes because you eat painkillers to heal this is you are am i crazy here no there's a wikipedia page for samson uh you can drive around dalston story yes it was published by liquid swords yeah april 2026 received mixed reviews you play as samson mccray yep yep i previewed that game for a couple hours and went uh maybe this is for somebody and then i didn't hear about it since this is crazy yeah this is one of the rare times that i'm like i'm surprised you didn't remember samson this launched this year this is a 2026 game how many of y 'all don't know about this game no they know a couple people know about it they know about samson don't tell me y 'all don't know about you don't remember this gameplay you're in a city and you're out and you're boxing dudes i don't when was it revealed you do need to remember there was three months that i was just out of the games oh fuck so things happen that i'm like this might have been when you're out maybe That's a really good point.

19:55Interesting. That's a really good point. I mean, but yeah, this doesn't look bad. It was fine. Yeah. But that's the problem. Yeah. Hey, somebody just make a GTA clone, but good. And then profit. Like, I know that's a crazy tangent. I also know that's a crazy point to make.

20:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:But my thing is, like, when they work, they really work. They really work. And, like, obviously I'm not saying, hey, let's take bets. Let's make a bet that we probably can't live up to because we've been talking about extraction shooters for the last two years. Not every developer thinks that they can make Tarkov. And the only studio that was able to do it was the Ark Raider studio. And everybody else has been making extractions that have not been working. Obviously, don't make bets on trends or whatever. But like, I feel like more people want open world city games than an extraction shooter. Maybe this is me.

20:41Maybe. Maybe this is me. I don't know. DJ Do It says, Frank Howley from Noclip sang Samson's praises. Okay. Okay. There's something there. I thought it was going to be for somebody. so i was right about that dinesh says i have two friends that have bought the ultimate edition of gta 6 and don't even have consoles yet so that's true that's stupid technically you can buy gta 6 there will be people out there remember when breath of the wild was out selling the switch at launch yeah that was crazy dude the power of some of these companies man

21:15Blessing Adeoye Jr.:that's like that's one of the things in this article it's a slow news day right so like we're chatting and we're just having fun we're just talking about video games and business like we always do and like to the new zoo um their criteria for the different kind of like sales curves here i think is fascinating it is i wonder how on point it is but like when you talk about sequel there's sequels with performance uncertainty and then there's um sequels or proven sequels like a zelda any mainline zelda is a proven sequel which is how you sell more copies than a switch than the actual switch console gta obviously proven sequel as well um i just find that really interesting though it is it is and again it's not rocket science but it's like yeah this is what these people do is like they look for trends they try to come up with ways to like bucket them so that they can help predict things in the future so yeah that does make sense and it is it's funny though that like it's not like there's any criteria where you say pokemon's a proven thing too and it's like well scarlet violet got bad reviews that like people bought it anyway matter yeah because it's still a proven yeah so on the sale side whereas like but watchdogs right it is interesting where watchdogs 2 10 million sales and then watchdog legion yeah i don't yeah i have no idea how much that sold i don't think it was 10 million i don't think i don't think so i'm even still trying to double check that watchdogs 2 was 10 million uh let's move to story number two which kind of fits into this a little bit as well gta 6 isn't on pc at launch because quote it's always better to start with the constraints suggest former rockstar producer this comes from rory norris at pc gamer the lack of a gta 6 pc port at launch is the sore spot for those of us faithful to the old mouse and keyboard so why is rockstar passing on a simultaneous pc launch for its games including the upcoming gta 6 according to former rockstar producer john ruchio in an interview with reese kiwi talks riley on youtube it's not because the studio doesn't care about pc he describes a time when games were typically made for pc first focusing on the strongest hardware and then downsize for consoles before launch naturally this led to some shoddy console ports cramming optimization for weaker hardware at the last minute so you're much better off starting with the constraints shrinking's a lot harder than extending to more powerful hardware oh we've got extra room cool we can de-optimize some things or make them more shiny he then noted that back when red dead redemption was first in the lab they had pc port working very early in development those who patiently waited will know that the pc version came in 2024 over 14 years after launch and you can blame gta 5 according to rachio getting pc versions ready is more about development priorities it's not that we don't care about pc it was just is it worth spending time getting a pc port going versus working on gta 5 it's never any specific anti-any platform so he adds if you're working on that you're not working on something else usually there has to be enough of a business reason to do some of those ports or the lift has to be so light that it'll be super easy to do and it's really super light it still feels like rockstar's having its cake and eating it too though rachio points out that in the past there were cases of legitimate hardware limitations when developing for console compared to pc and that power cap is definitely closer now a lot of interesting stuff there but like i do think and he kind of even like gets to this point himself so it's not like i'm saying he's wrong but he is talking about a very different time where talking about a gta 6 pc version the conversation's not oh are they going to port this thing to pc it's more like the expectation in modern days would be it's coming day and coming yeah at the same time this is kind of a rarity that a major third-party title is not going to be on pc day and date we understand why because we saw some sales charts yeah and also again gta 6 functions outside of a lot of and rockstar outside of a lot of ways we kind of like look and group these different sales numbers or companies or whatever it is so that's not surprising and they know what they're doing but it is a in a dream world it's launching everywhere so they get even more sales right i mean i think they're just gonna get those sales anyway you know like i think even when you launch on pc a year later i think maybe you're banking too that people will double dip as well and they will and they will um but i also think like i know we're talking about these technologies being closer than ever in terms of architecture and so when you're making something that's multi-platform it's not 2007 anymore these things you you can make things for multi-platforms and have it not be like the most herculating task here i do think that when you have only two skews to work with being the ps5 the in the xbox series um i guess you add the ps5 pro you get what i mean a very limited amount of skews to work with you can create something that's so polished and not have to worry about like word of mouth gameplay clips all this shit of bugs because oh great we've released this on a million different pc configurations now and people are finding things like i think you get the game out and then you have let's say if they take a year the year to see how it works see people get their hands on it and then also optimize and work on it and create a pc version that has all the bells and whistles and all the stuff that people we'll look forward to out of that yeah and so it does kind of stand to reason here that it makes sense that what he's saying of like yeah you develop for the lowest and then just kind of build off of that you can only add more and like that's kind of where we're at right now where you know these games aren't coming to ps4 they're not coming to xbox one like the lowest thing it'll be on yeah well i mean unless unless they get crazy what do you mean unless they get what switch 2?

26:50Nah. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. I predict GTA 6 comes to Switch 2. I also predict it does not work well. I think that it'll be a shining example of failure.

27:01Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That's a really good sentence. You know what? I can see it, but not for a while. I think a Switch 2 version, I'll say at least two years, probably three years away. I think it's going to be a, alright, let's see how worth it really is for us to put this thing out on Switch, and then once they realize it, they're like okay let's really work on trying to make this thing work and i i honestly think a switch to version of gta 6 will work will run well enough just will look a little bit less pretty oh it'll look a lot less pretty yeah yeah but i mean i don't think they'll make it run and all that i don't think they'll put out a gta like a modern g actually i was gonna say i don't think they'll put out a modern gta that's not gonna run well but then i think to the gta trilogy and yep how bad that went so who knows i also do have up to date uh Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft did announce in 2020 that it sold 10 million copies by the end of the 2019 and 2020 fiscal year.

27:56Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Watch Dogs Legion, I don't have up-to-date numbers, but in the first three days, that game sold 1.9 million units. Now, I think we're in a different time. Andy's been saying this lately, and I think he's right when it comes to a lot of games. And I think Watch Dogs Legion will be one of those games where if that game came out today, I don't think that game is selling 2 million copies in three days. I think that game is selling like a million copies in three days. I mean, it was also a launch window. Launch title, yeah. Launch title, yeah. Which I do think that does kind of. Booster. Change the story just a little bit.

28:31For sure. We're going to keep speaking on stories after a quick word from our sponsors. This week, we're sponsored by Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny because it's Patreon Pledge Month. If you enjoyed the crazy amount of SGF coverage we put out in June, consider tossing us a few bucks this month with a Patreon membership or upgraded pledge for July. Patreon members receive perks like ad-free audio and video versions of every show, access to quips, a Twitter-like equivalent with posts from Greg, and a daily exclusive episode of Gregway. We're releasing episodes of Gregway publicly each week so you can get a taste of what the show is all about.

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29:37Story number three, Elder Scrolls Online studio leadership revealed to be part of the Xbox Cuts, but say they have tremendous confidence in the game's future. This comes from Ethan Gatch at Kotaku. Teams across Xbox are still just beginning to feel the deep impact of this month's 1 ,600 playoffs. Those cuts have now been revealed to include leadership at ZeniMax Online Studios. The team that makes the Elder Scrolls Online, studio head Joe Berba, who took over last July after the last round of mass Xbox layoffs, is among those who will depart after 14 years at the company. That's according to a report by Gamefile on an internal memo shared with staff on July 15th.

30:15ESO executive producer Susan Kath, a studio game director, Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz are also among the cuts. They told staff at Zendimax Online that they would remain in place for the next few months as the team transitions to a new set of leaders. We have tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick, the future of the studio, and the continued growth of ESO, Verba told staff in part of the message. A Warn Act notice filed with the state of Maryland showed 379 layoffs across Microsoft and subsidiaries and IMAX offices there, which include Bethesda Game Studios. The notice points to cuts to senior leadership positions like studio operations director, studio art manager, and vice president and controller.

30:53The cuts have led to concerns among some staff on the affected teams that game development would be negatively impacted as a result. Quote, we want to take the time to evaluate the work in front of us and then lock down an updated schedule. eso's community manager announced once the xbox layoffs began i yeah continues to be really sad

31:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:news as we get the aftermath of all that's going on at xbox with all the different departments and studios uh and how specifically each one um are getting those layoffs um mike was asking this when i was out there prepping the show talking about this story and he was like what does this mean for eso is this eso continue to be one of those games that we see at every xbox showcase where it is, all right, you know the games that are always showing up. It's ESO, Fallout 76, Sea of Thieves, right? It's Xbox's multiplayer slated games. How much of a de-emphasis is this on ESO? Plus, you're asking absolutely stupid questions.

31:43You should be ashamed. Yeah. They're gonna have tremendous confidence in the future. They have tremendous confidence. Tremendous confidence, you know, hey, this is horrible, but you know what? The game's gonna be okay. My bad. Yeah. It is such a... problematic time that we're in and like i have nothing new to say here of course like this sucks this is so sad but it's just like and and i also at a certain point i'm not pointing the fingers at the people saying some of these things because it's like they're not the one it was a similar

32:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:statement from id software earlier it was kind of like oh we're good like we got people we were down to the same numbers doom 2016 we got a plan it's just tough dude because it's like it's so bad and being like no but it's okay and it's like but the thing is it has like those people need to believe it's okay like today i don't know again this is such a shitty situation and it shouldn't be this way but like it's definitely just one of those ones of like what do we even say here what do we even say you know like even if even if your leadership you experience these layoffs maybe you feel pressure to speak to your community or speak to the public and have something to say and so you kind of get up it i don't want to say that they're being like toxically positive right because i i also don't know the i don't know what i'll say in their position right like hey we have a product that we want to continue to keep pushing forward and we want to continue to see successful even though our parent company is fucking slashing left and right and left and right and it's like well i want to encourage my team i want to encourage our our community even though they're looking at us like dog i mean what what if the leadership that's all the way i've got in front of everyone was just like yo it's cooked yeah it's fucked get out get out you're gonna get laid off yeah man that would light a spark under someone's ass i'm like start prepping your resumes yeah like that's yeah that's a tough thing of like what do you what do you tell these people on their way out but obviously hope for the best for this team right Zenimax um and like yeah we've talked we've talked a million times about it and so we don't have to go back back into it but I'm just wondering about the future of Xbox in its entirety what's happening to these studios what's going to happen to them when we get to July next year are we talking about another around like this are we talking about is this happening so that they can sell xbox at a certain price because we've kept the best studios we've kept the ip and we've gotten rid of so many people that now that number is looking right for sale that's looking likelier and likelier for the day bless story number four mario tennis fever just got a big update this comes from sal romano at gamatsu nintendo's released the version 1.1 update for mario tennis fever which adds game share via game chat the black hole racket fever racket the galaxy court stage galaxy court match special match and new color options for luma um so you can also get some new classic outfits in the game and some character specifications have been changed as well um pretty cool getting a mario galaxy course in this game do you have a gut reaction to this uh my gut reaction was like oh yeah this came out this year and i like this game um i think nintendo does updates in the weirdest ways man there's just no consistency and i've always said predicting nintendo is the hardest thing because it's like they're just there's no well they did that so they'll do this yeah like mario kart world they haven't even mentioned dlc they charged 80 dollars for that game yep they never promised dlc was coming no but with that price tag you kind of just assumed you know and like with mario kart 8 and deluxe it's like the dlc came way later so at any moment things could happen yeah we got we're getting mario tennis fever dlc just out of nowhere out of nowhere like okay and it's like some meaningful content like a new type of match a new court the new fever like new rackets how what is going on what team makes mario kart world and what do they what do you think they're doing working on mario kart world i'm sure yeah yeah and it's going to be paid dlc they're making more than 80 dollars we'll see there's no i mean yeah you're right you're right because like are they are they making dlc for that game yes yes they are we will see mario kart world dlc and it'll be from that team i'm just surprised we haven't seen it already i'm incredibly surprised what if what if at the next nintendo direct you know we don't hear anything about mario kart world but instead arms 2 that team's working on it arms 2 we just moved on i we're trying things i think we'll get an arms 2 at the point really yeah it's a nintendo ip there's a character in smash brothers like it's i don't i don't think it's gonna get fully f-zeroed and even f-zero had a couple chances yeah you know what i mean like i think that it is in that category of title for them but like i think they'll give that thing another shot interesting do you think they should it's nintendo like what should they do i don't know i just don't know people i don't i know some people that liked arms and i almost liked arms arms is i think it's good i just think that it was like a little undercooked at the time and and yeah a little overly gimmicky but i think that like over you you can fix that i i don't think that they can turn arms into a major franchise for them but like i think that they could put out an arms that sells three million copies but i i okay i can see that you know what i'm not actually i'm not mad at that i think my thing is when i think about that team and their talents i wonder if i wonder if a new ip like a new different kind of multiplayer game would be the move like i think arms to me felt like a oh splatoon was really successful let's try let's try more of those like let's try to be more creative with like our multiplayer titles and arms didn't have the sauce that a splatoon has but i think they could explore more and find something else that does i mean the thing is that you say doesn't have the sauce i think it has a lot of the ingredients in the sauce it is just missing some meatballs yeah you know what i mean like like and i feel that uh it arms with some more of a campaign and more more of a story i think could be get a lot more people in because the gameplay was fun and interesting and the characters were awesome the world and the music and all that stuff like it had that nintendo yeah charm and magic so i think that there's there's something there i i don't think that it'll be that it's easy like to uh pull off what i i would expect them to need to but like i i can see i can see a a 40 to 50 i guess it'd be 50 with like the star star fox remake level arms too yeah i think i'm like i like the analogy of like you know the sauce right and i think there's i think that arms i think the base wasn't as strong as the accoutrements where the soundtrack for arms was fire i think the style of arms is great i think the flair and the customability of the different kinds of arms are good but i don't know if the the pasta itself right like the actual grain here is strong to carry a new game i think like if you keep those accoutrements you keep you keep the seasoning there you keep the sauce but then switch out the base with something that might feel a little bit more solid because splatoon i think has both so you're saying you need to give arms legs yes yes i think arms needs something i think arms needs more legs there we go story number five zelda's getting a huge action figure lineup in time for the movie and its 40th anniversary austin manchester at polygon is the one reporting this more zelda collectibles are on the way just in time for the movie coming out next year and And as part of the Adventure Series 40th anniversary, Nintendo and Hasbro are partnering up for a new line of six-inch scale figure sets to come out in 2027.

39:28The first three figures will be revealed at Comic-Con in this year, July 23rd through 26th, which is like next week. I'm excited to see these. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. For decades, Zelda has captivated fans through its deep lore, unforgettable characters, and enduring sense of discovery. Hasbro Toys and Board Games president, Billy Lager, said in a news release by combining Nintendo's iconic storytelling with Hasbro's leadership in action and role play. We're delivering toys that invite fans to play, explore, and forge their own epic adventures. Blah, blah, blah. We understand. It's fucking toys.

39:58It's Hasbro. They're making action figures. Don't be trying to act like it's more than it is. It's a multi-year collaboration, they say. Cool, great. And hey, that is awesome. I do like that Nintendo has been more willing to collaborate with toy makers. Nintendo started in a lot of ways, as the card games, but also toys. and nintendo views themselves even their video games as toys as as entertainment in that way so uh it has been heartening to as i get older and older and you know it doesn't matter how old i am whether i was six years old 16 26 36 yeah if i'm at a target i'm gonna walk through the toy aisles you know what i mean and it's like throughout those years where my interest is pulled has kind have changed legos are always top priority no matter what right but then you kind of go through and like i always want to look at the action figures and seeing what the action figures have kind of have come and go like power rangers used to dominate so cool to see ninja turtles at all times is relevant transformers all times they're there but the amount of sonic the amount of nintendo yeah toys that you could just buy can you imagine growing up less and having access to mario toys because like you just didn't have that yeah i mean not to this amount no yeah and like there

41:19Blessing Adeoye Jr.:was something special about going to my cousin's house because my cousin for some reason my cousin had all the pokemon stuff i say for some reason i think his him and his siblings cared way more about pokemon like in unity whereas for me me and my siblings i was the only one that really cared about pokemon that much but i would go to their place and they just had pokemon everything and i'm like man y 'all live in the good life yeah yeah i'm in the good life yeah i mean the pokemon that's even a whole other i know that's a whole different thing but even then it's like you know there were the eras the the dark ages of uh the mega blocks um you know teaming up with halo teaming up with uh pokemon and all that stuff and now that it's like oh it's official it's lego like we're getting lego mario stuff we're getting lego pokemon stuff 99 of it looks like fucking dog shit because they keep doing the stupid ass big thing you see the the pokemon trainer red like giant minifigure no i didn't like it no i didn't really don't like it uh did you see the pokeball that opens up and it's like the their first battle and like professor oak with no i didn't see this this is lego yeah yeah oh hold on i need to look that up and then there's a rayquaza with like on the i forget the name of the top of the mountain from ruby and sapphire um i saw the um when i was at the the pokemon museum they give you a ticket to go to the store after and they're like you can buy five items no more no more than five items and no more and no duplicates very strict over there but uh one of the items they had in this store was the lego stuff and it upset me and it upset me just looking at it i do want a lot of the chat is saying that the mega blocks legos or the mega blocks pokemon look better than legos i i agree with you i'm always going to throw shade at mega blocks but i do think in this case like undeniably the pokemon mega blocks look better than lego um how could they not sky pillar thank you real garotza that's what i'm talking about um the requer's one's like kind of cool sure the requer's one but then look at this jigglypuff like what are we doing what's up with this jigglypuff man like jigglypuff shouldn't look like this uh kev can i want to bring up the pokemon the pokeball uh lego because i want to show bless that one let's try to fuck it pokeball lego oh yeah it's already on the lego site hold on hold on this mewtwo and i'm not the biggest fan of the mewtwo model itself but they got the mewtwo like in the yeah the thing okay i'm sending this to assets

43:44there you two's looking cool they can't really see it but i like it are you there kev uh yeah sorry uh let's just send it to assets i think it's funnier this way so yeah so check this out uh it's a pokeball and then it opens up and then inside it uh keep going kev it's like choosing your first that's cool and then it's a battle between oh that's so cute outside so pretty cool is it worth 300 no i do like that at least we're getting actual minifigs though getting a red minifig and oak minifig i'm like that's pretty sick yeah um yeah i can't imagine

44:27Blessing Adeoye Jr.:like you know one one day i'm gonna have a kid and like i'm gonna get to be that parent where that kid's gonna see a commercial on tv for a toy that they really want and then it's gonna be something like this it's gonna be this right and then points win they're like dad get me that pokeball the lego and i get to look at them and go no absolutely not do you know the value of money do you know how much that thing costs i'm gonna get you the generic one from the story down the street it's the vicious cycle yeah we're gonna go to dollar general all right we're gonna save up some money let's get to actually give me one second uh we have a guest coming and i need to get roger to go out and get him um i mean should i read this next door no no no give me one sec give him one second while you're doing that let me take a peek at super did you see how cool what's his name oak oak looked yeah like a little mini oak yeah he looked like a he had like a five o 'clock shot a shadow and like you just look rad that's my thing is like i think the legos when they're just a little mini lego figures yeah they look great but then they make them big and it's like whoa look at his smile it's too many angles yeah like i want this you know what thing he doesn't let go oak kind of hot yeah absolutely yeah doing things for everybody um all right everybody story number six uh we've partnered up with nvidia to cover some of the news that happened this week some pretty pretty interesting stuff here nvidia and sega celebrate 30 years of innovation bringing virtual fighter crossroads and other legendary sega games to nvidia rtx spark uh so what's interesting here bless yeah the legacy of this story so uh i'm taking a little bit here from andy robinson from vgc who who covered what went down but 30 years after sega saved nvidia ceo jensen huang reunited with sega's former president at the original sega akihabara arcade to celebrate a new partnership so did you go to the sega arcades when you're in japan not the akihabara one there's so there's arcades everywhere like sega obviously so tied to that culture back in the 90s, so there's a lot of actual Sega arcades.

46:37Very, very, very cool. The two companies announced that Virtua Fighter Crossroads and future Sega titles will support NVIDIA's RTX Spark, a new line of all-in-one system-on-chips designed to run on slim Windows laptops and compact desktop PCs. The announcement represents a full-circle moment for NVIDIA, which is now the world's largest company in the world, but started its life as a startup supplying Sega with 3D graphics in the mid-90s. The NVIDIA NV1 chip, the company's first graphic accelerator powered the first virtual fighter on pc that's really cool this really is that like full circle i didn't know that and it goes even further than that though because notably nvidia signed a lucrative deal in the mid 90s to supply 3d technology for sega's upcoming dreamcast console but due to poor technical decisions it failed to deliver putting the young nvidia in financial peril however in a pivotal moment the sega president at the time so Ichiro Iramajiri saw potential in NVIDIA and agreed to invest five million into the company which Jensen later reflected had kept it afloat quote five million was a big amount of money for Sega at the time I told him that if they invested the money in us it was likely to be lost but if they didn't invest that money we'd be out of business and have no chance he thought about it a couple of days and said we'll do it that's crazy that is crazy I didn't know the story uh Yeah, so there's a video, too, a 30-second thing, if we can check this out.

48:05That's the arcade. Okay, I was going to say it. God, Japan's so cool. Next time I go to Japan. Yes, audio, please, Kev. I might stop by.

48:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I can't wait for Virtual Fighter. What Sega did for NVIDIA and what Iri Manjuri-san did for NVIDIA. NVIDIA would not be here today. And we have something special we wanted to show you. this is a supercomputer on a chip for a pc

48:35yeah old school decades old uh history kind of like coming full circle here and yeah we partnered with nvidia to talk about this and specifically virtual fighter yeah where are you at with

48:47Blessing Adeoye Jr.:virtual fighter so virtual fighter historically a series that i've dabbled in but not been able Where'd you dabble? Like what was it? Was it Virtual Fighter 4 on PS2? No, it was Virtual Fighter 5 on PS3 and immediately did not click with me. And then they put out Virtual Fighter 5 Revo last year. Tried it, still didn't click with me. However, Virtual Fighter Crossroads, I'm going to try it again. And I think this will be the one where I'm going to force myself to try and learn the mechanics because it's a very different fighting game. It feels, it's very technical in a way that Tekken isn't. Like Tekken, maybe this might just be that I'm so, you know, used to Tekken.

49:21Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I feel like I can get in that game, button mash, and make stuff happen, whereas Virtual Fighter feels a bit more just technical and a bit more particular about how it wants you to play. Everything we've seen from Crossroads so far looks really cool. The single player mode or the campaign mode, whatever is going on there, I think is really awesome. So cool. Looks so cool and looks really different for a fighting game campaign. And then just any footage we see of the actual 2D or not 2D, but the actual one-on-one fighting in this game just looks incredible visually. yeah it looks kind of like unbelievable yeah like this is one of those games where it has that like oh this looks next gen yes there's like a fluidity in the in the character animations uh in the actual fights themselves where it's like whoa like i this doesn't yeah to your point this doesn't look real um i remember the reveal trailer we got for this definitely was like um you know pre-canned cinematic kind of thing but was meant to reflect like the actual in-game um gameplay that even as a representative for what their vision was i'm like sure sure that's gonna look like that exactly and then you see the actual gameplay it's like whoa oh wow they're actually pulling this off so this looks so sick this looks really i've been loving the trend of story campaigns in uh fighting games and like like really kind of having a one story to kind of follow through as opposed to just like quick little vignettes vignettes as we go through an arcade mode so yeah like this this looks really cool kevin is there a way to look up i don't think there's a specific trailer but there's there i know there's like fighting game gameplay out there for like the 1v1 fights because this is more like story mode type stuff i feel like there's like at least like five seconds out there oh yeah i sent him a battle overview trailer as well that doesn't have too much in it but we do see yeah they've not shown a whole lot um some of the yes this type of stuff like bro like this is hot

51:16yeah yeah i can't i cannot wait for this so cool so cool the lighting is just crazy put a date on it or anything next year 2027 okay that's very cool uh man virtual fighter crossroads that story mode gonna be big gonna be huge gonna be real real big but bless if i want to know about something a lot smaller the smallest news items i could possibly know about where would i look you'd go to our last story the we news channel where you cover all the small news items you need to know about if you're an indie dev submissions for the mix fall game showcase are now open yeah go to blue sky check out uh the mix dot blue bs bsky dot so you know it's a bs term

51:57Blessing Adeoye Jr.:blue sky but they put out a blue sky post yeah um they're looking for exciting upcoming indie games to showcase uh in person in seattle this september i imagine during pex season um and you can go to that link that's in their post uh to be a part of the showcase very very cool star ocean the second story r gets a surprise switch 2 version today that's cool because that game looks beautiful yeah pearl abyss today announced that cross saves now available in crimson desert kev kevin just squealed in there like is that actually something you're interested in yeah Absolutely. I've been playing it mostly on the portal, but I'm down to play it on something prettier.

52:36Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is now launching on September 10th with early access beginning on September 7th. Projank Footy releases on August 12th.