Is Xbox Game Pass Ruining Video Games? - Kinda Funny Games Daily 09.08.25

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1:55You're so back. Today's stories include a major feature of the PlayStation 6 has been reported. Everybody's chiming in about Xbox Game Pass and Wolfenstein's trilogy isn't finished according to Machine Games. Of all this and more, because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily.

2:20Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games Daily for Monday, September 8th, 2020. i'm one of your hosts blessing adiolier jr joining me is the master of hype snow bike mike less welcome back mr big dog how you feeling today i'm feeling good how are you feeling man i'm feeling good it's monday we're gonna have a little sports moment with mike because it was a great sports weekend tell me about it we got to talk about sports ball but first i want to hear about you how was the big marvel tokam fighting game oh mike mike let me tell you let me tell you because i did want to talk about it but i forgot that i wanted to talk about it that game's special man so the closed beta happened over the weekend.

2:58I think the easiest way to put it is it feels like the return of Dragon Ball FighterZ and I fucking love Dragon Ball FighterZ. I mean it's Arc System works right so they worked on Dragon Ball FighterZ. They also do like Guilty Gear and they make so many fighting games. They made the Persona fighting game as well that also kicked ass. I would say I would probably call them the current fighting game goats. I don't know if that's crazy to say. Let me know if you disagree. Chat in. But I would say Arc System works are the current fighting game go fighting game goats of course there's tech in eight of course there's street fighter six and so those would be the arguments there but i think i think the amount of games they put out and the amount of quality they put out with each of their games like they just do something special each time and marvel took on fighting souls he was like it's going to be another special one it's it's weird kind of because it's 4v4 which is a lot of characters they're talking about eight characters per match happening in this game and also it's per team one life bar and so like usually an attack fighter if you think like marvel versus capcom when you switch between characters you're switching between new life bars here you got four uh four characters you're choosing from you're tagging in and out but you all have one life bar and so if you wanted you can just stay with one character the whole time and then like just use the other characters as assist moves and stuff like that i really like this game i think it's hard for me to get into like the you know deep mechanics and stuff like that because i'll this this close beta was like very condensed it was for maybe like six to seven hours uh each time i went live and i would go down and had like maybe three to four sessions uh over the weekend but at first blush what i'll say easy pick up and play there's like an auto combo system that makes it really fun and engaging okay the uh characters so far i think are awesome uh my favorites being miss marvel i think she's cool she has a cool move where she'll stretch across the screen and pull herself across the screen was really fun i liked iron man as well he's like i mean he's projectile city which is exactly what we want out of an Iron Man character.

4:49And then Star-Lord. It's funny because I'm a Star-Lord hater after Infinity War, but I love, I think I just like his character in video games because Marvel Rivals, Star-Lord's fucking sick. And then here as well, I really like Star-Lord. Art style, fantastic. It was a great presenting game. I think the UI looks great. You look at the screen right now and you see how all the colors pop. Even at the start of a match, the way the colors kind of fade into the levels looks so fucking good. I'm so hyped for this game. Love that. Is this one that you're looking forward to have you gotten yeah i'm still high on the 2x ko uh but i mean anything marvel right we're gonna jump into and this is probably the ip that would get me back into a fighting game that i would try again and like try to dive a little bit deeper than my normal here's a couple hours then put down so yeah i'm super excited for this bless and hearing you gush about it gets me even more excited that was a really fun one another fun one tell me pax west i got to go let me tell you we're dying to hear the stories over here i mean i don't have many stories per se what i will say is shout out to everybody who came through and said hi you know i was there very casually i was trying to be like a little bit more low-key at pax west i didn't have any official plans i was doing like previews and stuff but like you know for the most part i was there on vacation and to hang out and have a good time and the amount of people that like you know saw me said what's up miss uh portland kevin organized a meetup that sadly like i had a preview during and so i couldn't go but i caught i was able to catch him afterwards just on the show floor with a group of kind of funny best friends and they were all so cool and awesome um pax west is just amazing if you haven't been i know it's like such a privilege to be able to go to a video game convention or video game show like that uh because like they're happening in major cities you know if you're from if you're from somewhere that does that just doesn't do events like that it's hard to make it out which i understand i'm from champagne so i get it uh but if you have the privilege to at least once you know fly to a seattle fly to an sf or an la or wherever these are a boston wherever you can find a convention like this it's so worth doing it's so refreshing it's so fun and you come across so many different cool uh vendors so many cool indie games that like you would not have heard of otherwise that have booths there where you're like oh damn that looks cool and then you like you know wishlist the gameplay later and like man that was something special that i was only able to find on the show floor such a good standout indie and a standout booth because my favorite are the booths yes i love the presentation i love how they set them all up give me two give me two superstars i'm gonna give you those answers in one i gotta look at my wish list all right one big winner oh my wish list aren't loading hold on hold on hold on we're gonna do it i gotta organize by time letter lost so letter lost was a booth that like was where the where the indie mega booth used to be which isn't a thing anymore which really saddens me but the indie mega booth at pax was this booth that just had all these fucking indie games right They're all so cool and dope.

7:38But still in that area, you can find a rotation of cool smaller titles. Letter Lost had a booth there where you go and a guy comes up to you and he's like, hey, I found this letter for you. You got this letter in the mail. And then he hands you an envelope and you open it. And it'll say like the envelope will say to the guy with cool hair or to the girl with a cool jacket or to the person with a nice smile or whatever. And they'll try to find something that fits you specifically. so i think for me they said a person with a cool jacket because i had i had a nice jacket on um they give me the envelope and you open it and it's like an escape room puzzle like as you're standing there in the booth where like you'll read a riddle and you realize that you have to like dial a number and then call it call it by figuring out like the math problem or whatever and then uh you call it and they'll give you another riddle that's like something something table legs like that the one i got had had to do with table and legs and so i'm like okay well what is this and then i look under the leg of the table like at the booth and they had another thing that i was like hey talk to this person right and like they'll lead you through this multiple multiple part problem that then leads you to wishlisting the game and then also joining their discord um but like it was a really cool really creative way to introduce people into this like escape room style puzzle solving game which you know i'm all about um and it made me excited like i looked i watched the trailer for the game and i was like oh this looks really cool and so Letter Lost was that booth if you want to check out the game.

9:05It's on Steam if you want to watch the trailer. I love that, Bless. How was last week without me? Last week without you was quiet, boring, slow. I had to put up with a lot of Roger in my life and I wasn't happy about it. So we missed you a lot. We're happy you're back now. I didn't get to talk magic with anybody as we revealed three or four brand new Spider-Man cards with Tim, which they were all very dope, Bless. I watched it. I've never had so much FOMO in my life but also you and Tim rocked it like I think you guys were actually the right duo to do that we're excited for that you and I know we're excited for Spider-Man end of the month yep and I'm just itching to play some more magic everything's been good bro and listen I'll say here I'm going to MagicCon Atlanta like as they're launching the Spider-Man magic set I'll be at MagicCon Atlanta and so if you're out there say what's up go see bless I don't know if I'm gonna do anything official yet but like I will be there in a work capacity and so I want to make something happen that seems really fun I love that Well, quick little sports moment with Mike.

10:03We got to talk about a great weekend. Of course, weekend one of the NFL football is now officially back. Bless. Let's just run you down some of the highlights. Run me down. My CU Buffaloes get a big win against Delaware State. Bunch of nobodies. Okay. But they played all three quarterbacks. That was kind of lit. Then we move to Mizzou versus Kansas. And all we wanted was Mizzou to win. Because why, bless? Why is that? We're keeping eyes on Mizzou all season long to keep Greg engaged in college football. Exactly. They won big against Kansas. Their rival, Massive W, had to have it. Now, let's go over to the gridiron.

10:38NFL's back. The greatest Sunday night matchup of all time might have gone on last night. Ravens versus the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo. Final season of the big Ralph Stadium. They're going to say goodbye moving to a new stadium next year. Wow. So the final season opener there, down by 14, end of the fourth quarter. You're thinking, oh, it's over. Came back to win in stunning fashion. Hell yeah. It was the greatest blessing. That's cool. It might have been one of the greatest football games of all time to watch. I saw people tweeting about it. I saw, like, the – it's fun being on, like, I'm not on sports Twitter or sports blue sky by any means, but Mutuals, who I follow, who I won't even realize are that into sports, I'll see them tweeting.

11:20That's how I know there's some crazy shit happening. Some crazy shit happening. And then finally, big shout out back to now the hardwood. Big shout out to Carmelo Anthony Mello. Getting retired into the Hall of Fame. Giving a shout out to the Mile High City where he started. Denver took a chance on Mello. We love Mello throughout the years. And still mad that he went to go play for New York. Wow. But I love you, Mello. You're the best. Can I give you three more things from PAX Slash Seattle? I want to hear them all. One, played Riffbound again. Riffbound is the League of Legends card game that they're launching later in the year I played against one of the developers made a schedule, they were like, hey, come through play, and I played against one of the developers, I won and I earned a neat badge, I should have brought the badge in I earned a little badge that said, I beat it dead which was so cool badge, you put on a jacket it was like a badge you put on a jacket that kind of thing other thing, they had a Red Bull creator lounge if you follow like you know video game creators that go to pax or whatever you probably would have seen them post in there red bull collabed with peak the video game to collab to have a creator lounge at pax where you would go in if you're like a yeah if you're like media or creator or whatever and you would like order red bull cocktails non-alcoholic and let me tell you that shit was a blast they had to put photo ops too with like peak stuff it was a fun time uh and then lastly shout out to my sister i went so i went to seattle to visit her because she just had a baby and so like it was really like a vacation situation of being like yo let me visit family let me hang out for the week and yeah it was very lovely seeing my sister her new baby so shout out i know she doesn't watch but i just want to shout out anyway shout out enough about that mike let's talk about today's stories because this is kind of funny games daily each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on youtube twitch and on podcast services around the globe if you love what we do support us with the kind of funny membership on patreon on YouTube and now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free.

13:19Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be a part of the show. Some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube Super Chats as we go housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. So today after KFGD, you're going to get Gamescast, which is our Hollow Knight Silksong review so far because that's a big old game. Big old game. We tried to get Andy to beat him one weekend. I was convinced he beat it until So I talked to Barrett this morning. He was like, dude, no, he beat act one. I'm like, damn, that game's big. The big old game. It's real big.

13:51And then after games cast is the conjuring last rights in review. And then the stream is some of that rainbow six siege. Is that correct? Nick Scarpino's back. It's time for Nick to get on the sticks and play rainbow six siege with us. You can come in anytime you want. All right. On the stage. You might, you might see me on that. Okay, big dog. It will be there. I want to come through for that. And then if you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg weighs 21 minutes about how you are looking at the future of pc xbox and playstation handhelds all wrong thank you to our patreon producers carl jacobs omega buster and delaney the psalm twining today we're brought to you by shady rays and factor but we'll tell you about that later for now let's begin with what is and forever will be the roper report it's time for some news we have six stories today a baker's dozen starting with our number one it's a report the playstation 6 will go modular with optional disk drive this is darren bothis at game spot the playstation 5 turns five years old in november and talk about the yet to be announced ps6 has begun picking up lately one idea that the proposed successor console could reportedly adopt from the current playstation hardware generation is a detachable disk drive.

15:10According to Insider Gaming, having a detachable disk drive will allow Sony to reduce production and shipping costs of the PS6. This is also seen as a way to protect the company during uncertain times, likely a reference to ongoing turbulence in the market brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. Essentially, this will allow consumers to choose between either a PS6 with a disk drive, a more traditional option, or a cheaper digital model that they can later upgrade with the add-on. In comparison, the PS5 console first launched with either a built-in disk drive or an all-digital model, and people who bought the more affordable console had no option for upgrading at the time with an add-on accessory.

15:49This changed when the slimmer PS5 console revision was introduced, and last year's launch of the PS5 Pro did not include a disk drive at all, although one can still be attached to it. Several years into the current console generation, hardware has only gotten more expensive over time. In Europe, the PS5 Digital Edition has reportedly been hit with shrinkflation as the internal SSD is being reduced from 1TB to 825GB. Earlier this year, Sony announced price increases for digital and standard edition PS5 consoles across Europe, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. And in August, the price of all PS5 console models in the US increased by$50 due to a challenging economic environment, Sony said at the time.

16:35One other thing that we do know about Sony's next console is that the company will continue to rely on hardware over cloud technology. Back in June, Sony President and CEO Hideaki Nishino said that while cloud gaming continues to progress, consumers still prefer the local execution of games that comes from physical media or content downloaded directly to the console itself. Mike what do you feel or what do you think about this disc drive situation? Yeah, but it's just a fun conversation to have here in 2025 and beyond because there is a clear divide of people who still hold on to the disc drive and want to be able to put in physical media and then there are those who have moved on and just doing straight up digital.

17:17I as someone who is doing digital only really like this option. I agree with this option of hey, give me the option to buy the external hard drive if I need to and be able to have the disc player there if I want to. If not, I would prefer a cheaper route. I don't want to pay for something I'm not going to use. And so it's a fun one because our audience in particular really holds on to that physical media and is all about being able to have that and not going the full digital route yet. Of course, we talk about that with licensing and true ownership if you really have it or not. But right now when I read all that, I love that there's an option for both, right?

17:52Hey, there's the idea of in uncertain times, we want to be able to give you the cheapest option, cheapest option for us as well. But if you still want that, we'll sell you an external disk drive. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the article attributes it to uncertain times and the tariffs, which I think are true and exacerbate the situation. I would have assumed this would have been the case either way, with or without the tariffs. That just feels like where everything's moving, especially with, I think, the push from PlayStation. And I think the wider audience wanting, or at least like the wider audience being more digital.

18:25You know, you mentioned our audience being physical and I think that makes sense. I think the more hardcore audience of gamers and the older audience of gamers, no offense, our audience, but like, you know, I think that consists of people that want to hold onto that physical. Yeah. Rightfully so. Also like physical is fucking awesome. When I was in Seattle, I went to all the pink gorillas. There's three pink gorilla stores in Seattle, which are these retro game stores. and there's something just special about holding like a cartridge or holding a disc even the ps5 ones like i'm looking through and i'm seeing certain ps5 games on disc and i'm like dude this there's never anything like this right like there's something just special about getting to like read the box and like hold the game and do all that shit but also i think as time goes we're becoming more and more of a niche slash older audience that does things like that i think the the younger audience especially like a younger audience of growing pc players even are just becoming more digital and so i think for playstation and i'm sure more more hardware companies right like the conversation then becomes all right how do we make this make sense as far as manufacturing costs and then also cost for the consumer especially with the tariffs especially with how things have gone down as far as the factors we have to consider for pricing hardware I think this makes complete sense.

19:43Exactly, Buss. I think this is the way of the future. We'll see this with Xbox and Microsoft. We'll talk about this, of course. Switch has their own options and what they're still doing with their game cartridges. So there's still a physical media market out there. I would love to see the percentage of how many people are actually buying physical media and plugging it into their console because it feels to be less and less. You go into a GameStop nowadays and it's 90 % Funko Pops and then a bunch of, you know, kind of sticky old game cases that you don't really want to bring home with you. Why are they sticky, Mike?

20:17They're sticky in there, man. Oh, you know why they're sticky. And then on top of that, it's like a lot of special editions for games are now just coming with a digital download code as well. Which is still whack, by the way. I hate that. It's a collector's edition. Give me the disc in there. What are you doing? Yeah, and most of the time now the disc is just a licensing where you just plug it in. it downloads the day one patch or it's just the code essentially and you're still downloading the game or you still need internet to use it so a lot of these physical media things that we used to love are not the same anymore yeah well mike as physical is dying we gotta have more conversations about xbox game pass let's move on to story number two xbox game pass once again is in the firing line after former microsoft executive says it creates weird inner tensions this is wesley yinpool at ign and this comes to the super chat question where do you stand on xbox game pass and why we're gonna get into a deeper conversation here and it's one that i'm i think i'm most curious on the audience in your input mike like i have opinions but also like i also don't have opinions on this at the same time my opinions i feel like are basic compared to what you or the audience might have here so tell me in the super chats where do you stand on xbox game pass and why hot on the heels of former x a former bethesda executive pete hines questioning xbox game pass as a business strategy, a former Microsoft executive has backed the comments, insisting Microsoft's subscription service creates weird inner tensions.

21:45Last week, Bethesda Softworks' former senior vice president of global marketing communications, Pete Hines, said gaming subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are worth jack shit if the game developers who create content for them are not properly supported. Subscriptions, quote, subscriptions have become the new four-letter word, right? You can't buy a product anymore. Heinz said, when you talk about a subscription that relies on content, if you don't figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content, without which your subscription is worth jack shit, then you have a real problem.

22:22End quote. Over on LinkedIn, former PlayStation exec Sean Layden expressed support for Heinz's comment, saying, quote, hits this nail right on the head. quote the question is not is the service profitable for the platform laden a vocal critic of video game subscription services added uh is it healthy and helpful for the developer is what we need to ask end quote lane's comment prompted a comment from former xbox game studios vp shannon loftus and this is spotted by tweet town who provided some insight that benefits uh from coming from coming from a former Microsoft employee. Loftus, who retired from Microsoft in 2022 after 29 years at the company, served as a manager on several Xbox projects, including Fable, Viva Pinata, Banjo-Kazooie, and Age of Empires.

23:11Quote, As a longtime first-party Xbox developer, I can attest that Pete is correct, Loftus said. While Game Pass can claim a few victories with games that otherwise would have sunk beneath the waves, Human Fall Flat, for example, the majority of game adoption on Game Pass comes at the expense of retail revenue unless the game is engineered from the ground up for post release monetization i could and may someday write pages on the weird intertensions this creates end quote the suggestion game pass comes at the expense of retail revenue is a long-standing criticism of the subscription service one microsoft was forced to admit in 2023 there's been much debate recently over the profitability of xbox game pass which microsoft itself itself has said makes money even when factoring in the development cost of the games that launch within it and the lost sales of first-party games which people no longer need to pay individually for regardless xbox game pass remains a huge profit driver for microsoft which said in june that description service had reached a new annual record of nearly five billion dollars in revenue for the first time following the launches of the elder scrolls online oblivion or not online just the Elk Scrolls Oblivion remastered Doom the Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle so Mike there's a lot there comments from three former executives big names big names where do you want to start here I mean you know I'm a consumer so I like the consumer side but I do really love hearing Pete Hines chime in on this and then of course the follow up with the other two was like this is definitely the information you want to hear and those are the people who would know it very very well blessed of course there's a developer side there's a microsoft business side so i think there's three here consumer developer microsoft business yeah you pick what you want to start with on that i think the easiest place is the consumer because i genuinely i know it's a it's a phrase that gets thrown around on the internet often and i think you hear on podcasts and a lot of stuff right talking about xbox is the best deal in gaming and like obviously things have shifted as far as pricing tiers and all that shit but i think it still stands that this year you look at xbox game pass and what we've gotten uh expedition 33 on there you got hollow knight silksong that launched on there uh you got oh there was another game ninja gaiden uh black ninja gaiden 4 will both be on that as well yeah like i think the deal stands there as far as the bang for your buck and i think in a in an industry that is becoming more and more expensive where games have moved up to 70 and are in the process of trying to move up to 80 i think when we're seeing tariffs and hardware costs become even more you need to find ways to allow consumers to afford getting into this hobby that they love right and i think game on a consumer side just simply consumer side game pass is an avenue for that i think game pass is a value for consumers even still to this point is it going to be like that forever probably not we'll see but But that's my take on the consumer side.

26:11I agree with you, Bless. Of course, as prices continues to rise on the sub side of things, we'll have that conversation of when is it too much. But on the consumer side of things, right now in my eyes, it's still a major win, right, Bless? This is something that is a subscription. You can turn it on. You can turn it off whenever it appeases you, whenever you want to jump into it. But when you look at it, right, having a catalog of 100-plus games, and really it's like 200 to 300-plus games at your fingertips at any moment to jump into, saving you$70 on every first-party title from Xbox and Microsoft, from really talented developers, like, of course, we talk about id Software with Doom the Dark Ages this year.

26:53It's like, yeah, that's saving me a ton of money when I could be spending$70 a pop on all of these titles. I get to jump into first-party Xbox games with no thought. The partnership side of things, I absolutely love. I continue to beat the drum of the EA play partnership. We get 10 hours of free play on every EA title that's released. Right. So that means if you don't want to spend$70 on Madden, you can play your 10 hours, have your fill and never go back and see double a or college football, NHL, all the list goes on and even more EA titles. Right. And so the riot partnership, we get all the league of legends champions for free.

27:29You get all the agents for free when you play a Valorant as well. there's just so much that gets bundled into the subscription service on the consumer side that is not hard to love right yeah the idea of the netflix of video games where i can sit on the couch and scroll for hours and look at games and go i would never play that i'd maybe play that i'd never play that and have the option of like i'm stuck in a hole because i can't stop looking at games or having the moment of i'm clicking on games that i probably never play and jump right in having my friends be able to play these multiplayer games that we know you're probably going to spend one to three nights with and never go back to save me the 20 to 60 dollars any day of the week on those right like that is the major wins here on the consumer side that it's hard to be like it's hard to listen and be like the consumer side is bad because it seems like a major win for a couple years ago i bought my nephew an xbox one s for christmas and then like the next christmas i traveled down to hang out with them right and like they had played games that i wouldn't even think right like you know this kid is playing um not split fiction it takes two and i'm like oh and he's playing it off game pass and i'm like dang like i wouldn't even thought to about you it takes two but that makes sense for you and your brother to be playing this and you're able to discover that via game pass let alone just a catalog of games were able to dive into and go oh my friends talk about this at school let's play that that's something i would have killed for as a kid you know like that is value the consumer side is nothing but positive as of right now.

28:56When the price starts to go up, you can have that conversation of when is enough, but cloud gaming, PC gaming, on the console gaming, this whole ecosystem and where we're at right now with an Xbox handheld coming in, Xbox making a big push on PC, and of course on the console, it's hard not to say it's still one of the, if not the best. A consumer friendly thing. Subscription service and gaming. So, where do you want to go from here? Now let's talk about the, I mean, I think the fun one is the developer so let's talk about xbox first yeah because the developer is the 50 50 you could be on either side of this so let's talk about xbox okay so okay here's my thing xbox i have very big critiques of xbox game pass isn't one of them right like if i'm thinking about two major critiques one of my critiques is more so about microsoft as a company like not really xbox it's more so like their how they veered so heavily into ai which i get like i don't want to act like ai inherently is a bad thing on the technology side because i don't think it is right but like i think there are things involving generative ai and like how there are things about like the bds list and stuff like that where it's like okay there are things that are fucking bad about how xbox how microsoft is operating and i think some of that stuff affects xbox on the side of like that then raining down on the other thing that i'd take as a big critique which is how they have managed some of their publishing partnerships to the point where i'm looking at them like why would i believe you when you announce a partnership with kojima to put out a game right like i i think that stuff is more of where i take issue with on the xbox side of game pass though like i i look at that and i'm like well that seems like it makes sense to me as far as like as far as why this is the strategy as far as why game pass is the strategy microsoft the trillion dollar company xbox being the gaming division of this it seems like game pass is the win of it all right we're talking about a console and team that was in third place needed something to buck what was going on in that and change their trajectory and this was one of those small pillars that they can say that was a win that started to get us in the good graces of gamers that started to get more people on our side now is it millions upon millions like maybe we all hoped it would be and it really changed it no of course not but But it had a strong consumer base of from what, 2016?

31:17When did this start, Bear? I'm sure 2016, 2017. You saw nothing but small wins on the Xbox as a whole side of saying, hey, more gamers are coming in. They always love to tout, hey, instead of saying sales numbers, now we can say, hey, 3 million players jumped into Grounded and tried this on weekend one. 30 million players played this over the course of its lifespan, right? And that gets you in the news. It gets you having a nice little positive news cycle. I don't see anything on the Xbox side and Microsoft side that is a major negative from Game Pass because it is a trillion dollar company that can do all this stuff, right?

31:54Yes. Now we get to the developers. There's the good and the bad. Yes. I think that's where things get weird. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Nick Scarpino has things to say about Xbox Game Pass. I missed you. He's dapping up Mike. He's just here to dap up Mike. We missed you, Big Doug. we're out of town at the same time i forgot you're gone oh shit oh shit yeah why is it getting a bigger deal oh shit nick is back everybody he's back bro we missed him nick i'm gonna play um rainbow six siege with y 'all later hell yeah it's gonna be a good it's gonna be a good time you're my dude all right the developers is really what gets what gets the good and the bad and the part of pete hines quote that i lock in on is where he says um um oh where is it he says it's worth jack shit if the game developers who create content for them are not properly supported and i think the not properly supported part is the important thing because i there's no like there's no lever you can pull on the business side of things on the financial side of things that's going to be the oh this lever is the objectively good lever hey any game launching on game pass is going to be successful or going to be you know it's going to do what it needs to do i think as a game you have to look at what your aim is what your audience is what you're like even your launch strategy on other platforms or your marketing strategy is on other platforms and look at all of it as an amalgamation how much is microsoft slash xbox you know paying you to have your game on game pass is that going to serve your game well like i don't think i i i'm on a double side thing right right where i think part of it has to be on the developer to know and understand what game they're making and if that if game pass is going to serve their game well and then of course microsoft needs to help usher them through that right it's like i think you need a team that has the experience which i'm sure they have i would assume they have right a team that has the experience then talk to developers to be like hey is this a good deal for you yeah like is this it does game pass suit your game it's an interesting one because it seems like from everything they've ever spoke about they've added all the initiatives to help people who are signing up for the ID and Xbox program or getting in on game pass to have these avenues of like, Hey, we're here to support you.

34:09But yes, as a game developer, you should probably know what you're coming into and what you really expect. Cause I think on the outside, we all look at it. It's like, well, Microsoft just gave you X amount of dollars. Yeah. So now like do with it what you will. Right. So what more do you need to succeed? And you should know that. So you can either say, tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, we need X, Y, and Z as well to make sure we're there and ready to rock and roll, right? Because we talk about this. You have now given up the upfront sales cost of this game. So you're not getting that revenue because we were hoping that Game Pass would supplement that in some way, shape, or form.

34:45And so are you a living, breathing, live service game where you should have monetization techniques ready to rock and roll and be ready for that? Or is it, hey, this game is a one and done. We're going to put this out and hopefully the money from Microsoft has paid and got us ready for a sequel or Nintendo Switch. PlayStation will have that upfront cost where that can pay for the sequel. This got us through development X, Y and Z. Yeah. I want to bring in some super chats. There's a lot of people are running in with their opinions. David N. writes in and says, isn't Game Pass only a short term consumer win, though?

35:18If it starts to fundamentally change how games are made and potentially change the DNA of acclaimed studios we love. that's an interesting one I mean are they changing the way that games are made right like you have to look at that for me that's the big question it's a statement to say that and say like games are being fundamentally changed but like are they Doom the Dark Ages just came out a single player first person shooter that had no glitz and glamour of a multiplayer or anything different about it it was just a straight up here's a 10 to 12 hour campaign you play it and enjoy i i i would want examples because i think the examples i think of of where xbox has fallen short which let me tell you i can list them i don't look at game pass as being the issue i look at xbox and management as being the issue if i'm being frank right like when i look at tango gameworks and them shuttering and then coming back under a different company i don't look at that game launching on game pass as the issue unless there are reports out there that like really lay out like oh hey no this is where things went wrong i more so look at acquisition and just how xbox as a company and their management has fucking failed that failed that studio and how a lot of their publishing initiatives for like these third party things whether we're talking about john romero's game or if we're talking about um i guess just the list of games that they that have fallen through i look at that more as a management thing i look at redfall as more of a management thing i don't see these as game pass failures more so just xbox failures yeah it's an interesting one you bring up that right of like Tango Gameworks, a team known for its horror games, right?

36:52We don't know what happened behind the scenes, but was it because of Xbox's funding and being purchased that they were able to have enough funding, time, resources to make Hi-Fi Rush, right? Would this be a team that would have just been stuck on the cycle of fighting for anything they could get off of just the Evil Within, right? Like, are we able to get Hi-Fi Rush without this Xbox purchase? We don't know unless we do the research and ask the teams right but you would hope that they were able to help them now afterwards right a major fumble there that i mean we're talking about a great game a great team i don't know why you wouldn't keep that red fall we've seen plenty of games come and be absolutely disastrous and bad right and yeah of course phil spencer came on the x cast and talked about we have to have better oversight and that's one of those where you scratch your head of like you guys have been in the game for almost three decades like there's no way you don't have oversight where did it fall through the cracks right and is that one of those of like just get it out let's get this over with or are they avoiding the hey let's get to 90 and cancel this like we've seen other games recently hey let's make this partnership because we were riding the high off of covid and now we're back and we're getting back to reality of more people are back at home or they're outside now and they're not playing as many games that partnership we had this game that you were making it doesn't look like it's going to make it or it needs extra funding that we don't want to continue to put in let's cancel that now right so there's been a lot of that lately for sure um i want to bring another one from jordan white who writes in and says besides venturing out into new genres of games i've played most of this year's game of the year contenders through game pass so that's their their their chime in there um icy wiener writes in and says my six-year-old plays so many games in game pass but now thinks every game on xbox is free that's the thing is like i think there's a conversation to be had that's like i think a bit too on the anecdotal side but like i'm willing to hear this conversation and like there are parts of this that i see as far as how xbox game pass uh changes the perception of the value of video games i think there's conversation there right and i think that's it's weird and tough and kind of messy because i also think there's you throw free to play in that you know they're talking about how they're um they're six-year-old right play so many games and they think that games are free i think about the amount of free to play games that people that are older than six right have like grown up with that they're probably like well why would i buy a video game when i wouldn't fortnight the you know my favorite game ever as somebody who's probably 18 20 you know 22 whatever it is right like when that's something i played for free when i'm looking at the you know the amount of free-to-play games that i spent all my time playing uh with friends i think there's a big conversation there as far as value um i mean we're looking at two juggernauts in roblox and fortnight that have dominated the gaming land space for almost a decade now right and like is it on xbox saying hey developers do this or is it also developers looking at themselves saying well this is the biggest trend in gaming this is what the gen alpha is growing up with yes and they're becoming older now as they turn into teenagers and young adults right should we be going after that audience right we see pete come out for four dollars and does gangbusters right so yeah there's a new way of thinking and looking at video games for sure from all aspects yes um aaron lime writes in and says could game prices be rising in part because of lost sales due to subservices are publishers making things inconvenient chasing passive income i mean this kind of kind of comes off to comes off of what we were just talking about there i do think that there is a conversation to be had about exploring the scale of pricing you know i saw people were making a big deal over silk song being 20 uh this last week i've been gone so i'm i'm late to all the all the discord stuff right but you know i it's complicated and tough right and it comes down to you know your your wallet is your wallet right you got to spend money in the way that you can spend money which means that some things are going to be more expensive and something's going to be more affordable in some games like a silk song may be more accessible because they're silk song right they're able to do that and be like yo we're gonna sell this game at 20 peak is going to be more accessible to me game pass is going to be how I play games, right?

41:08I think that then puts the pressure more on the companies that are pricing their game at$80 or$70 to then look at themselves and go, hey, is this really an$80 game? Is Outer Worlds 2 really an$80 video game? Or do we need to lower the price of this a little bit? Hey, is Mario Kart not a great example because they stood on that$80? And listen, turns out, they'll get them sales either way. So Mario Kart might be the example of like, hey, you can launch this at$80. they're going to piss people off but you can do it um but i think you're gonna have to see publishers explore that that scale more and i think that's just part of a changing slash maturing industry as far as you know how you're looking at the value of video games and what you have to to do for pricing to get people in the door i think that's just the challenge um i'll bring in one more a lot of people wrote in about this thank you so much for game pass devinster writes and it says i love game pass i treated the same way as movie pass years ago before they went out of business outside of a discussion point i never understood consumers being mad about game pass barrett i'll say papa for a second i don't i'm not familiar with movie pass is that a thing that movie pass was i believe a list before it was called a list and it was like um yeah that was like the thing we were obsessed with uh back in like 2019 but that like quickly kind of fell off of a cliff just because of how unsustainable that business model is uh sorry i was gonna put my camera on but i froze oh yeah um yeah there was another super chat i want to try to find as well that talked about the uh just like the sustainability of it and i think you know game pass is a unique thing where it's you know under xbox this is under microsoft so um it has kind of this foundation that it can kind of settle on and take time to kind of figure out if that model works or not.

43:01Whereas like, I forget if MoviePass was, if that was like owned by like a larger like a company or whatever, but that was definitely one that felt like too good to be true. Who was it who wrote in? Tavin wrote in and says, it feels like GamePass benefits the mid-range level of game the most. And in an era where the mid-range doesn't really exist anymore, it's crippling to the AAA model. Things like Expedition 33 being the best mid-range example. And I think that's, you know, a lot of people in chat are saying, like, well, Game Pass is obviously successful because indie devs go with Game Pass and all that stuff.

43:38And I think, yes, for smaller teams who would like a guaranteed, like, we're going to make this amount of money because we sign with Game Pass. Like, that is good for them. but in terms of like the long-term structure of Game Pass, specifically Game Pass plus how big Xbox has ballooned in the last few years is what I specifically worry about of can it be successful enough to actually offset, you know, whatever people aren't paying full price for all of these games that are under Activision and Bethesda and Xbox and all this stuff because we continue to see teams shut down, games canceled uh and that is my particular worry when it comes to to game pass now just because i think like maybe it is a solid foundation maybe it is a solid business model i think the weight that it is now under especially in the last few years is a little concerning and that i do agree with i i think when we talk about like the different aspects of the consumers the developers and xbox i think you can make the case that like each of those are positive things i for me it's the forecast of xbox game pass five years from now 10 years from now is it sustainable what does xbox slash microsoft as a corporation that is functioning around game pass what does that look like long term i genuinely i am so worried about that i think that comes i think but i think that comes back to just how xbox has been functioning in the last i mean i could say decade right but i think seeing accelerated since the acquisition of activision blizzard where yeah it does feel like you're they're having to tighten up a lot because of call of duty because you have to like there's the scrutiny from that from the microsoft side right but then also yeah i think there's so many financials that go into that that you have to look at and be like is gamepad like is this sustainable for us i i don't know like i know they say yes i just don't know how now the interesting one would be, is it gotten stronger though?

45:40With the acquisition of Activision Blizzard King and Call of Duty now on your side, right? And that game already having the monetization backend being so strong and being a juggernaut, right? What is the Xbox audience as we always have all these conversations about game sales. It's like, we don't even worry about the Xbox numbers because it's so small, right? Is that audience so small that it doesn't matter giving them that on Game Pass because you know they're going to spend X, Y, and Z on of course in games cosmetics but now on the flip side having the full price still out there with Switch and PlayStation still being one of the best selling games of the year each and every year right does that slow down it's only gotten stronger with that in my mind World of Warcraft now being underneath your banner right you're trimming the fat of like we've seen plenty of teams and of course developers and publishers do this of hey I have X Y and Z I know that the pillars are this this and that the other ones aren't really big money generators and either to keep them for the boutique game experience that mid-tier game pass compliments or hey you're not really in this now in 2025 that's when they're going to cut what makes you feel like it's stronger i think call duty is instantly stronger i think world of warcraft makes it stronger right like i'm thinking about bethesda and those titles from their mainline groups are making it stronger a better compliment for you to want to stay subscribed to the service, right?

47:07We have a Fable coming out next year. You have a Halo, a Gears, right? These are all major compliments. And now the idea of, hey, this is going on to our mainstay that will hopefully have you next year going, should I be buying an Xbox? Should I be playing on PC and just subscribing? Because now over on PlayStation, they're selling all these games at full price that they haven't been doing. So you would think that's going to be adding in the revenue over there to maybe cover the Xbox side of things or start to finally entice gamers of like, hey, these games that you like over here, maybe you jump ship, which we know very difficult.