Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out - Kinda Funny Games Daily Special Edition

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37:35Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash kind of funny. Go to shopify.com slash kind of funny. And we are back. This is the most like newsroom fucking day where like I'm getting calls right before the show going. Michael did his phone and left. Merritt said 30 seconds left. Mike left. Who knows? Probably just pooping. But instead, we got the one, the only Paris, Lily. Paris, how are you surviving the news? I mean, it's shocking, but it's not surprising. I mean, it's not surprising. It's definitely the way this is happening, right? That's what's shocking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, I personally thought Phil would retire after 25, you know, the 25th anniversary.

38:24I was kind of thinking into the year. So for it to happen now and couple that with Sarah Bond just flat out resigning and then the new CEO is not a gaming person, so to speak. Right. This is someone from the AI world. Yes. Matt Booty is coming in as chief content officer, which obviously will help with that. It just feels like something really went down that we'll never get the full story to. We'll get the full story. Maybe if Phil or Sarah does a book 10 years from now, we'll get the whole story. But yeah, this is a new era for Xbox in the sense of why I say it was disagreeing with you. I don't feel this is a signal that they're bringing back any type of exclusivity.

39:10I just think, yeah, to what Blessing was saying, yeah, we're going to say all the right things right now. but clearly this did not seem like it was in the works for a year because it sounds like she's coming in and i don't want to say her name incorrectly is it it's asha asha that's how we've been saying asha sharma yeah yeah yeah that she's coming in and trying to understand the business and the direction obviously with the focus of hey let's make great games let's make sure we take care of our core audience which i don't think phil spencer ever didn't want to do those things so this pit like let me put it this way activision changed everything yes i i think we can all agree with that that had completely changed it obviously they got to be profitable we know the industry is on fire we saw what happened with playstation yesterday everything's chaos i get it but to for phil spencer to retire right now just feels like hey did something happen internally to where he's like, man, I'm already close to the end anyways.

40:14Why am I continuing to fight these battles and trying to put out these fires? I'm just going to hand it off to someone else. And like I said, we'll find out the story one day. Sarah Bond clearly was not a part of those plans because she would not have just abruptly resigned this way if she was. And the part that you mentioned, Paris, that I agree with, and the part that's wracking my brain, that I'm trying to rack my brain around, is the idea that Phil Spencer didn't want the things that Asha is talking about here, right? Like, the things that Greg's mentioning of calling out, yeah, you're recommitting to your audience.

40:46You're saying that you're going to, you know, commit to cloud, PC and stuff, but like maybe not other consoles, or at least there's an absence of other consoles in that statement. The idea of even the implied or like the softly implied, maybe this could be exclusives or whatever. I would have thought that those are all things that Phil Spencer would have wanted. And more so it would have been bigger Microsoft being like, no like we bought activision we need to make more money put your games in more places like that strikes me as the microsoft decision not as much of the phil spencer decision and that feels more like a microsoft at large business move more so than yeah xbox has been doing like if you asked phil spencer what his ideal xbox would look like i think he would have said yeah i want everything to be exclusive like i want to be able to be like hey you have to buy this xbox to play starfield and call duty and all these things like i'm i this this almost feels like a red hair not red herring almost like a like switcheroo of oh no we're the ones we're the ones that want the exclusivity like we're the ones who want to recommit to you we got we got rid of the leadership that didn't want all those things even though they did want all those things i don't know if that's me just over reading yeah i wonder that because i would have gone the other way of thinking phil probably would have been like no we like this vision right knowing that we're in third place.

41:59I want these games to shine everywhere. I don't want to be cutting developers left and right, so I want to make sure that we commit to putting these games anywhere the gamers are. Let's meet them. That has been the messaging for the past five plus years. Meet the gamers where they're at. And I wonder, I'm on the opposite side of, I think Microsoft looked at them and goes, this clearly isn't working. Console sales are tanking. We're done with this. And like, I thought Phil would have been like, no, no. This is where we're at. And Phil's, in my mind, One of the people that we thought, you know, it's a CEO, but we always thought was a gamer at heart.

42:32That was why people liked him so much. It's clearly seeing that, like, gamers are resonating with this. They want the games anywhere they're at. In 2026, gamers just want to get home, turn on whatever they own, and be able to be hit by the best games, whoever makes them. And that, I think, is what feels. That's what worries me the most, Mike. And the team saw that go, that's where we want to be, and I think Microsoft said, no, that's not working. That's what worries me the most about this, Mike, for Xbox. that sure, we knew Phil Spencer was close to the end anyways. But the one thing about him, regardless of however you felt about any decision he's made, you knew he legitimately played games.

43:09You knew he understood what we liked and what we didn't like. And obviously business decisions he had to make, you know, being a CEO. But now someone's in charge that I don't know. And I think that's going to be their biggest challenge right now is, and Greg, you already said it, she's got to talk. we got to hear what our philosophy is going to be we got to hear what the direction of xbox is going to be clearly matt booty is going to be a big part of that as well but are they still going to make a console you know in 2027 or 2028 i don't know now right i think you said earlier greg maybe let's just focus it's the pc but the messaging is still saying console well i know phil spencer because i asked him a year ago about all right you did multi-platform why am i buying your box and he said it's going to do something innovative.

43:57Is that still the case? I guess we're going to find out. I mean, I don't know now. You know, with him leaving at this juncture, if he'd have left once the next generation started, that totally made sense. But I almost feel like the job wasn't 100 % finished. And now he's not there to see it through. What does that mean? Yes, they need to make great games. But going back to the exclusivity thing, that that genie's out the bottle you you can't pull that back as as a customer why would i trust buying an xbox for exclusivity when you then told me it doesn't matter but now it does again i'm probably still just going to go buy a playstation in in that regard so i i think the multi-platform thing is here to stay i don't think that changes how they sell me on their box how they sell i'm sorry go ahead no i'm sorry you got how they say no no i'm just saying did their box or services and all that you know they really have to do a sales job now because a key again it's phil spencer think about it he he has been the longest acting gaming ceo we've ever had and now he's gone so you don't have that person there to instill any confidence in the product so you got to sell me on it all over again yeah and i don't think they know what that vision is and i think that's the problem where that and i think it's because this was not planned i don't think this was i've been past again back to me this is a newsroom we're getting phone calls people moving off i've been past something that again reiterates to me i'm not gonna read it but like reiterates of like oh no this was this was not planned no yeah yeah people are still debating in the chat if you trust us what i'm seeing i'm saying this was not we are on the xbox 25th anniversary this was supposed to be a big blowout year we've been talking about it since the start of the year before the year right phil spencer and sarah bond have been the face of it they have been the two faces of it and the plan we've we already heard it on the outside of like Phil is getting up there in age Phil will retire sooner than later Sarah is clearly going to be the number two into the number one role you are watching that live on your screen you've heard the messaging and then this year was supposed to be the hey 2020 25 years we're going to have four major titles probably in a perfect world like I've said before in games daily we would have announced this they would have announced the console this year, but with everything backing up, they're probably going to push off of that, but no way.

46:23Phil, this wouldn't be the way to let go of Phil. Goodbye would have been during the Summer Game Fest or after that with the Halo anniversary. I mean, think about it, Mike. It would be a thing of, let's go here, Phil Spencer retires. You announce it now that, hey, at the end of the year, I'm stepping down, and then everyone gets the rest of the year to kind of quote-unquote celebrate the legacy of Phil Spencer as he exit from Xbox, not hey, it's Friday news dump. Yeah, I'm out. Bye. 100%. Celebrate this. Right now, I should be walking through with blessing, Greg, and yourself, all the awesome highlights that Phil had throughout his career, right?

47:03When you look back on all the years that he spent here, he joined as an intern. It's like, the guy has had an incredible career, has done so many things for the gaming audience. We should be celebrating that, but instead we're like, oh shit, like, that's clearly not what's happening here that's not what's going down good lord let's get into some super chats here i think as we get into you know sorting through this and your feelings and your thoughts and everything else uh mr jimbo 5895 compulsion double fine etc are so cooked that's what me and mike were talking about a little bit during the break right especially when you look into this email we talk about the recommitment part right but even the part after that the third part of the asha sharma email where she talks about the future of play they're talking about reinvention new business models all these things right whether or not it is you're staying the course or whether it is we're trying to find a way to redo the exclusives like do all this shit no matter what going back to my point of listing all those games and going these are not console sellers if you're trying to make games that are console sellers i think a lot of those studios are fucking dead oh i think a lot of those studios are getting cut i i completely agree because think about it a keeper wait someone looks at this just as a raw number keeper doesn't make money why are we doing this this is what we're talking about the entire way microsoft on high coming in here and bean counting and going through ledgers and yeah kiln what why why do we have this studio in san francisco the richest or the the most expensive economy you know what i mean though why are we paying this much for office space in soma for this studio that's making art house games And that's why you bring in an executive who doesn't have a history with video games in the industry.

48:45They have a history of being the head of multiple different businesses, where they probably come in at a point in those businesses where they have to figure out what is being cut. Shout out to, you know, they came in at Instacart, I think a little bit after a big, what is it, lawsuit came through after Instacart was found out of fucking over a lot of employees. And I think she came in right after that to figure out the business side of what the fuck is Instacart doing, right? And I only bring that up because this is someone who experienced that as once a worker for Instacart. And seeing all of that play out, I think it's interesting of almost coming in as a ringer or something as a business side.

49:30We don't want somebody who has a passion for games. We want somebody who's going to make the raw business decisions and look at the numbers and go all right you're gone you're gone you're gone you're here you're here let's buy this let's keep going ask yourself this question we we know phil and honestly sarah bond was with with him was making multiple trips to japan over the past few years talking directly to those japanese studios convincing them to either be on game pass or make it like ninja guyden 4 as an example make a game for for xbox who's doing that now who's who's doing that work to convince them because xbox for 25 years has struggled with japanese games who's going to be the person now to continue that work and when the person who was doing that work and was building those relationship just all of a sudden exits the company again i think this lowers the confidence oh yeah oh yeah that way i think confidence was already so low in terms of the Xbox faithful in what you're doing and now having this emergency it feels like ejection exit entry like I don't think they have any kind of plan spun up to present to do the thing to have the conversation because to your point if this was amicable and we knew we're doing and you had all the time in the world a year to plan it it's an announce that it's going to happen it's Phil on the Xbox podcast saying goodbye it's Asha on the Xbox podcast saying hello them passing the baton moving on doing this thing we would have had a lot more is right going on here yeah cameron but that's what it goes back to again oh i'm sorry i just don't please this is the show's off paris we're gonna be here till five o 'clock go for it let's yeah i know i know we're gonna talk forever but that's the other thing about it of it was clear sarah bond was being put into a position to be the replacement for phil spencer right again those japan trips you everywhere you would go to have conversation it was her even just recently she's the one that's on good morning america talking about the next gen strategy and the hardware right and then all of a sudden both are just gone and someone who we've never heard of before is taking their place that's where i say the disconnect is and and the lack of confidence that everything that we're saying this was not planned there's no way it could have been cameron d entertainment if i can toss in with one already.

51:49You want to keep going on that? No, no, no. I stopped mid workout, mid workout to tune in live. I grew up as an Xbox household with a massive backlog I've purchased over there over the years. I'll be going 100 % PlayStation now. Uh, Mater writes and it says at this point, Nintendo is going to announce blue point is remaking Ocarina of time tomorrow, like three in the morning. This news is happening so fast as everything continues to run away. And then here, uh, Raka says, unfortunately we are a month away from fiscal year ending. Do you think we see more Xbox shutters or layoffs? Obviously, yes, but before the fiscal year ends, I think that's a quick turnaround to make those kind of decisions.

52:29You're bringing this person in, right, and this new regime in to fix this shit. And so, again, I hope I'm wrong, but if it is that idea, it is coming in and being like, compulsion, gone. Double fine, gone. And I don't want this to happen. I love these people. I love these games. But if we're talking about, like, let's balance the books and try to get it in the black so that when we go there and talk about this and well the booming growth of this and Call of Duty and this this this. Who's lined up to give me a game now and who's not? Who's going to be 10 years on? Sure, great point. That's truly how the room is going to be.

53:02Who's lined up to give me a game that we can show in June to get the stock, the shareholders up and who has already given me a game or is three years for you? Ninja Theory? Correct me if I'm wrong. When was your last game? Way too long. That was a conversation with Tango Gameworks wasn't it? of like, hey, they just put out Hi-Fi Rush and that's great, but also now they're very long away from putting out their next game, and so we gotta make decisions, and so their cut is what I kept bringing up yesterday with Bluepoint, of the fact of they had to cancel their last thing, and now, like, they spent a year trying to figure out what their next thing's gonna be, and that's probably gonna take them a long time, so PlayStation looks at them and goes, you're fucking fine.

53:33On the optics side, of course not, right? That is too fast into your first time being the boss of this to be cutting teams and instilling confidence in the people who are gonna buy your products, The people who are out there going, I want Game Pass games. I want to commit to Xbox. It would be tough in the first month to be like, I've now shuttered one, two, three studios. That would be a crazy way to kick it off. But, of course, we just saw Bluepoint. We've seen a thousand layoffs every single day. It seems par for the course. Yeah. I'm doing something. To answer that question even more, I think part of it probably has to do with how has she been spending the last month and a half for however long it's been since phil spencer decided that i'm going to leave the company decided decided quote unquote right like i think there is probably a process of understanding what these studios are doing taking visits or whatever right and it is going to be a thing of like you know if if asha and matt are coming into the studio like get your shit together clean it up make it look like the game's coming out tomorrow because i think that visit is going to be very much of like you know we're deciding things we're justifying our role yeah sticking around I can't believe you say it was blue point really yesterday yeah yes yeah little point yesterday that's fucking insane we're still sleeping on the blue point thing I can't believe that I'm using this exact paragraph text again the next day but when I took over kind of feudy the number one game show because of me I put out in my first survey a question and I have two questions and the audience said either to kind of mean I don't like him I was like you know what you're right that's not the spirit of the show yesterday i did it of one of the questions was what's the next playstation studio to close and we went through them all and blueprint was number seven on that list way down the line yeah i asked for xbox as well uh the kind of funny audience voted number one double fine number two rare number three ninja theory number four undead labs number five compulsion can i this is what i was gonna say please because i was going through again the list of games i'm like you know none of these are console sellers all this stuff right i feel like i can say that about maybe 90 % of Xbox game studios when I'm thinking about like when I think about this current generation of Xbox I think Xbox is the king of six seven eight out of ten right none of these games I look at as like these are going to be the things to get you money like really it is Call of Duty and maybe a couple of things probably a gear well you have activism maybe you have Blizzard now so you have Overwatch you have World of Warcraft right you have Diablo those are all you have Bethesda with Elder Scrolls.

56:06You have Doom in that mix. You have now an Indiana Jones slash a Wolfenstein team, right? I think that's on the line. But I think even when you take those games they just mentioned, Mike, now think about all the other teams that are on Xbox. That is a very small piece of the pot. You are thinking very well with your CEO cap on right now. That's exactly how they're going down the list. It's heartbreaking to have this conversation because yeah, I don't want to do that at all. I don't want to go down the list. If you put up an org chart of Xbox game studios right now, including with us including activision or whatever and gave me a dart if i throw that dart on there it's a studio that very likely can get cut like if we're talking about what they're likely looking for out of these studios like double fine we keep mentioning double fine double fine is not the only double fine xbox has has a very big handful of double of course of course they do i this will be if you if you ask me there's only one there's only two studios that probably aren't on the cutting board let me hear them playground playground games and take your pick call of duty studio the rest see if you know no no bethesda is also in there but that's probably all all of blizzard right now i mean diablo overwatch world of warcraft they're all safe and in their activision with call of duty those teams are safe because if you're a business person that is not getting off the hamster wheel yeah you're gonna have those teams no i'm looking i'm looking at it from this way i'm looking at it from this way to your point you're you're probably correct but i'm like who's been the most profitable and productive and productive over the past few years it's been playground and take your call of duty pick the rest i mean we we just talked about obsidian as much as we love obsidian had issues right starfield didn't live up to expectations where's the next fallout game you like there's questions but here's my thing every other studio and you're not wrong i think bethesda is safe because it is we have fallout the ip as a show we know how successful those games already are we have elder scrolls in the pipeline i do think that there's the maybe something like an obsidian does have its independence ripped away and is you are making another fallout like again it's what i've been worried about the entire time The adults come into the room and are like, cool.

58:20Playtime is fucking over. Stop making all these other weird things. Outer Worlds was a weird call. We do not make an avow to make a fucking Fallout New Vegas. We're going to do the Call of Duty model, but for all of our different. Come out, get on it. What was it? Embracer, right? Who was like, we're going to exploit this IP. That is exactly it. This is the test. This is the test for Sharma and the new Xbox regime is X. Does Double Fine stick around? Does Colourful Compulsion stick around? or is it they are all dropped and they come out and we're like, hey, we are Halo, we are Gears, we are Bethesda, we are Blizzard, bam.

58:52Or you're making Banjo. There's no more dancing around these IPs. Banjo is not going to do Elder Scrolls. Here's IP numbers. No more you get to pick, which is what I'm getting at. There's no Greg. It's our passion project. You make this now. Greg, let me ask you this question. Fantastic interview with Todd Howard the other day. I watched the whole thing. Thank you. Oh, he said I could call him. Should I call him? you should no but but this makes me think just listening to what he said just the other day how did he know this was coming maybe maybe not but what did he say everything we're talking about how much how much um what's the word i'm looking for how much decision making authority does he have for projects that bethesda wants to continue to do you know what i mean maybe he's being told yeah we're getting the elder scrolls six out and we're getting it out in two years you don't get five years to do it.

59:45Yeah, you're making Fallout 5. Get another team to do it. We're not waiting. We need the popular IPs that you have out quicker. So, you don't get to take your time doing them. You get my point. 100%. I think all that stuff is on the table. Yeah. If this was a different world where we had Phil, and this is the rollout, we're celebrating all of these teams and games that Phil helped cultivate, helped keep alive, helped doing that. Now we're in a whole other world where it's like, oh you're getting cut well you better don't answer the phone tomorrow because they're going to be calling you tomorrow that's unfortunate

1:00:25you're not cross says i think this is partially because game pass has been a failure after the activision purchase game passes uh is to become a much worse service imo yes oh not that i who knows if it'll be good or bad it probably will i don't know i don't want to say that who knows it'll be good or bad. Yes, it's part of the game pass thing, but it's Captain Capacitor also super chats. Microsoft stock has dropped 13 % over the last month. This is a reaction to the house on fire and trying to satisfy stakeholders by addressing in quotes a lower growth portion of Microsoft before fiscal year ding ding ding fucking ding as we've been worried about this entire fucking time of yes, Microsoft and all the fucking let's chase this goddamn AI bullshit is going to lead to everything else being pinched as they try to figure this out and try to find every goddamn penny in the couch and that's also why it's hard for me to believe the the statement from um asha sharma when she mentions i'm even impressed that they even call it ai slop which is kind of crazy right but you know they saw it talk about that's saying the right things again but yeah this is my third time probably quoting this as monetization and ai evolve influence this future we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless ai slop i give you t minus six to twelve months before we start seeing more ai slop make their way into the organization of xbox and how their shit runs because right now and the fuck this is the the the you know suckiest thing right now about the tech world and how this feeds into video games is that you put a on the thing and the shareholders are like ai and they throw money at it and like that's the next big thing i heard that's the next big thing and it's gonna pop right but right now that is how things work and it sucks sorry but to to counteract that right Like that Super Chat just said, going down 13 % in the last month.

1:02:09Do they see that as a slow lack of trust in the AI output or the AI promise? Because Microsoft has been such a big push into trying to make AI work. And now the shareholders are starting to feel like we're not seeing a return on this. We feel like this might be empty. And so there, and again, this is just a, to have this angle of conversation, maybe there is a, you know. I hope so. Maybe we don't push this anymore. Maybe. I don't trust Microsoft. Again, for me, for the last couple of years, it has been fuck Microsoft day one. They are still on that BDS list, and they've been pushing software driven by AI for the last year, and all of it sucks ass.

1:02:55and I don't trust them to take care of the people that they are in charge of, which is way too many people in this industry. I think even if the AI sector is part of the reason why you're seeing that dip, I don't think Microsoft will have the wherewithal to see that and go, damn, we got to slow down on the AI. I don't think that at all. I think they'll look at it and probably try to write it off to something else because everybody in tech right now is telling you the more AI that you implement, the more the money is going to come in from shareholders, and that continues to be a thing. I hope it pops tomorrow.

1:03:26But we're in such a weird place with it where like this train keeps on going with the AI shit. Oh, M Gerber super chats and says, enjoy the 25th anniversary because this is the official start of the end of Xbox. This is clearly a Satya slash Microsoft decision. Within five to 10 years, Xbox quote unquote will be stripped and rebranded as Microsoft gaming, which is another option I'm sure is on the table of what does Xbox even mean anymore? a turn a turn says the news of this week makes you remember how many decisions in this industry are made by the suits in boardrooms rather than those who know gaming a conversation again we've had this week of art commerce and who's actually got a hand on the wheel anymore and how fucked up all this shit is golden cartridge super chats buying activision accomplished nothing

1:04:18dab and dragon says they gave fill the option to retire as courtesy. I think that's pretty clear. Yes. Especially as we see Sarah Bond just, I'm out. Fuck this. Peace. They couldn't make it work with Sarah. That's the interesting one. It's like, we'll hear from Sarah one day, but like... That's the craziest part of this. They were like, Phil's out, and we clearly have not chosen you. Right? Like, wild stuff there after a year of what we just watched. Is that a not chosen you? Or as I showed this earlier from Gita from Gita from Aftermath. The only reason corporations ever put a woman of color in charge is if that person is going to have to publicly eat shit in a big way.

1:04:58Sarah Bond has clearly chosen not to be Microsoft's sin eater, and Asha Sharma has taken on that role. It could be a you're out as well, or I think more realistically with her saying, them saying resigned, she chose to be like, fuck this whatever directive internally we are talking about, I'm out of here. Exactly, Barry. What was her reaction there of like, no i won't follow this or really i can't do what this person's doing right now like i've been here for a year i've already got a hold of it initially aw super chat and says this strikes me as sarah found out today she wasn't getting the job she was promised and decided to bail a real house of the dragon situation yes i think today phil spencer was told you're retiring and and that went they told her and then we're bringing yeah and i think either it is you're not offered the job or just like oh the writing's on the wall that this is not the thing yeah i mean if i I think one of you said it already.

1:05:49If this was a planned thing, a happy thing, there's an Xbox podcast where they're all sitting down together at a table and they're talking about this. And that did not happen. So it's pretty clear. This was not by design or by choice. And with that, I will make my exit because I do have a job. So I still need to go do that as well. This is, this has been a wild effing day and I will see you all at GC. You sure will Paris. Excited to have you up here.

1:06:20oh austin says personally knowing phil was at the helm was really the only saving grace for continuing to take part in the xbox ecosystem now i don't know man yeah i think that's true for like if you're somebody who's part of the core xbox audience i could totally understand that for all the reasons we're talking about of him being somebody who presented who presents himself as i love video games i understand video games i understand the audience all this stuff right i wonder how much that is true for the general video game fan base like how many people are actually aware of who phil spencer is exactly how much i ride for phil as opposed to this is just what me and my friends play on yeah we've always played on this since the 360 we've rode this is right you know rumble pack says it's amazing how every time sony missteps xbox steps on a landmine immediately after even harder yeah yeah i'm supposed to be mad at playstation still right now like what are we doing here xbox let me be mad we can be mad at them all bless yeah but like let me sit in my seething rage about Bluepoint for a little bit longer before now I'm in a different seething rage.

1:07:17Palpatine's Super Chat says, this is crazy to say. Is Nintendo the only one doing things right right now? I mean, depends on what your definition of doing things right is. The first Super Chat of this whole show came from Bandura said, who said, I don't know what's worse. Bluepoint closing, Xbox collapsing, or old Pokemon games are $20. No one's doing it right according to Bandura said. I don't know, man. It's been I was reflecting on this a little bit. driving home last night, uh, on the blue point news, right? Uh, the conversation again of PlayStation and what is their identity? Like, what are they doing?

1:07:51This kind of conversation, right? But I'm still listening and reading. I I'm, I've been jumping around, but now I'm going front to back with Kez's book, right? Uh, super Nintendo. And when you hear Nintendo executives talk about Nintendo, and even if you don't agree with it or whatever, it's so, and maybe it's all lip service, but I don't think so. Look at the tracker and refreshing of like, yeah, it really is about, is it fun to play? Then we worry about the money thing. And so I know obviously come at me right now with this$20 Pokemon business or whatever, but it is still a business and there is still a reason they're doing, whether it be Pokemon home, whether it be playing together, whatever.

1:08:26It's this idea though, of like in a jaded ass way, you can't trust any corporation, but I'm listening to this and I'm like, man, this is at least a little bit heartwarming on a horrible day yesterday which i forgot was yesterday and now a horrible day today i'm just like and i and i think that's bread that story and probably more like it uh especially with nintendo is i think bred from not the mindset that these other companies have which is chasing a trend right yeah it's more of it yeah and like nintendo does a lot of crazy shitty things that is anti consumer and all that uh stuff but i i see them doing less of what everybody else is doing which uh balloons and then immediately deflates after we've ballooned too much yeah i think that goes back to i forget what the gamescast episode was where i was i think it was the nintendo hot takes episode actually because it was posted with the partner direct and i kind of like had a moment of deflation because i'm kind of i i was feeling i was in my feelings a little bit about nintendo and how i feel like i am in a weird place like i'm in a weird place about relationship with nintendo because i've not been enjoying my switch to as much yeah year or whatever and i think it was mario tennis fever this last these last couple weeks that have really like brought me back out of it into the conversation that we're having as far as how different of a company nintendo is than the two other console manufacturers i think there is something there that like you know obviously corporations all that shit you can only like a corporation so much but there's something about about nintendo that warms my heart because of the nostalgia aspect and growing up with it and always associating them with like a level of hey we're just here for play we're here for play we're here for games we're here for like the bright colors and all this shit right and like i i know i don't necessarily have to worry about the nintendo live service initiative or nintendo acquiring activision blizzard and if anything they're the one you Take more chances.

1:10:26You can do crazier things with your IP. Yeah, I guess my biggest problem with Nintendo is that they're too weird. You know? It's like, stop being freaks over there. Just make the thing the way it should be made. Saul Herrera says, Microsoft has spent$37.5 billion on AI and has yet to see a profit. They clearly don't care about throwing money into a bottomless pit. Pizza bet. Bless. Xbox pushes AI within six months? Question? Or sooner? I mean, it depends on what you mean by pushing AI. Don't they already? Haven't they already talked about AI? Yeah, I mean, there's Co-Pilot. There are things already.

1:10:58I'm not going to take the bet because I don't think there's clear enough parameters. Cooler. That's fair. That's fair. That's a good bet.

1:11:08And someone in chat already points out that, like, Call of Duty already has AI-generated art in it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

1:11:17Are you guys doing emotionally right now? I'm bummed out. You know what I mean? And it's like, again, I'm not. It's such a weird thing because it's just a perplexing move. I hate. I think I am bummed out and perplexed because as I think it was bare, but it might've been blessed, but it's also all of us talking, right? Yeah. So many people's lives are tied up in this. I'm not bummed out for Phil Spencer. I'm not bummed out for Sarah Bond. I mean, I've had conversations with both of them and I hope they're okay and it sucks and yada, yada. But I'm not like, it's just more like, how is it 2026 in the industry is this successful?

1:11:58It makes this much money that we are now every, every Xbox owned studio, Microsoft owned studio right now is head in their hands. Like what the fuck's about to happen? Like they no longer, I mean, imagine the amount of people who are buying houses are pregnant, are getting married. I have sick family. We're thinking they were going to retire. Just wanted to get this game. It's their first game of all time. They've worked on it. They're so stuck. And now is this ever going to see the light of day? Because we got to balance the budget here. AI, we're spending a lot on AI, but we're not making the money.

1:12:31That fucking sucks, man. That fucking sucks. And I know I'm talking to myself from four days ago saying it's going to get worse and it's going to be bad. It's eventually going to get better, but it sucks to be in the part where it's like, holy fucking shit. And then to sit here and go, cool. is it going to be next month that it is just line them all up, bam, bam, bam, bam to try to get to that fiscal year moment. And if not, is it a slow bloodletting? And then for everybody at Xbox and Xbox, who just found out about this, how many more resignations are you going to see? Cause like, again, you're the team who's been making the premium Xbox PC.

1:13:08You're the team who may, you worked with the folks on the, from Republic of gamers on the ally, right? You look at all that now and you're like, do you care about this anymore? Maybe we're still making consoles. Maybe if this isn't all just lip service and we're going that like everyone over there just had their entire world fucking flipped. And again, for what? This is not a decision that has been gestating a year. You could have done this and had a six month turnover and had a handoff and had a message when you took over that isn't, I'm excited to learn what I'm doing. I know I'm boiling something down there that's fair but it's just like man man what an industry like how are you feeling uh yeah i think greg said it so so well right my heart goes out to a lot of the team here as we will see what happens and as an xbox gamer and as a video game enthusiast right like i am super concerned i'm disheartened i just don't feel like this company this group knows what's next knows what they're doing.

1:14:13And it's like, I said that back when we started to let go of exclusives, right? Of like, I don't know if I'm on this, right? Like, the whole point was you make great games. You proved to me why I got to be spending my money here. And now you've said, well, we make games and we're going to put them everywhere. And it's like, all right, well, that's a problem here. And now, like, with this, this was not how 25 years of Xbox was supposed to be celebrated. Now you have to prove a lot to me, right? How do you do that anymore? I am someone who is like... How do you do that this year? You come out and prove it to me.

1:14:44I'll give you the grace. I'll give you the time. I am willing to sit here, and I have the time to say, you show me what your new vision is. But as of today, you are really going to have to earn me back, right? Because I'm a person who's already moved into PC gaming. I'm a person that has all the consoles, thankfully. But at the same time, like, my Xbox gets the least amount of love out of anything because everything is on PC now. It's like, well, what are we going to do? We're going to put out a 7 out of 10 game and think I'm going to go buy a console and I'm going to be a part of this? No. You have to make incredible games to make me really go, fuck.

1:15:20I got to turn this shit on. I got to be over there. And they haven't done that. They've struggled to do that. And it's been a sinking ship, and I've been on it for a long time. And this is the moment where I don't know how in God's green earth you're going to be able to pick it back up and let this thing sail away. It's just going to go down. Yeah, and that's why I'm convinced that a lot of what has been said publicly is probably just lip service to hold on to investors and all of this stuff, right, or what have you, or try to have the graces of the audience as you first come in. But realistically, to resell and to gain back trust of the Xbox brand is going to have to be years and years of building that trust, which is going to take so much more money that in their eyes has already been wasted.

1:16:11I see this as a moment where we're going to see a most likely a lot of cuts, a lot of, you know, slimming things down and keeping what is guaranteed to make money. and that is your rebrand of Xbox, quote, unquote. And yeah, with how we're feeling now, it's like I'm angry always. But Tim and I have been talking about this for years. We've seen this coming for years. And it's frustrating. And it makes us angry because I get a lot of comments thrown my way. Oh, Barrett doesn't know what he's talking about. Barrett's stupid, all this stuff. Yeah, I'm a dumbass. A dumbass should not be able to predict this more correctly than business fucking owners.

1:17:00What are we talking about? So that's how I feel. And still, it's still to this day, fuck Microsoft. Yeah. For me, it's like the thing of, I don't know if you had the thing where you go to a party and there were just bad vibes. Or like at first the party was great. and then like somebody gets to a fight or like you hear people arguing or like something happens and it's like man I need somebody to pick me up the vibes have been off bless the vibes have been called it the L cast for the ending of the X cast run for a while but the vibes have been off but for me it's not even just Xbox it's just the industry yeah right like this year and it's been before this year obviously it's been years of bad vibes but this year I think High Guard started me off on a very bad omen where like the High Guard situation I think just like tipped me emotionally as far as covering video games and covering the business of it and like i think part of it and i'm not trying to carry water for high guard or anything like that trust me but it's like the idea of how much uh uh like you know hate they got from the offset people even give it a chance people before that game even came out were already like yo fuck this game so when you lead into that into then like i don't know more bad vibes and then the blue point closing yesterday and then this happening now and then between all that the ram shortages and us being like is the steam machine even gonna come out this year ah steam decks are sold out like damn that kind of sucks ah video game prices are gonna go up i was talking about earlier this week man what is what's gonna happen to ps plus prices if they're pushing the playstation uh six a few years and they're looking to monetize their audience more what's gonna happen with that what's gonna happen with nintendo switch 2 it's prices that gonna go up like there's so many bad things happening and like you know but between it all i think we all just want to talk about video games and i've been in the last couple of days i've been having such a good time playing me genics and i've not had a chance to talk about how good me genic remember when the show was yeah we could just talk about the games we're playing and like me genic the the rotation between me genics and mario tennis fever has filled me with so much joy in the last week and i think when we think about the video game industry so much of it kind of like just taints the experience where i'm like man this thing that brings me pure joy video games which have brought me pure joy my entire life right from the moment i remember gaining memory right like coming into consciousness as i'm playing wayne gretzky's 3d hockey on the n64 oh yeah you know the thing that like brought me joy has brought me joy my entire life i am in the midst of playing these two games i'm enjoying so much and i i put down the console i put down the switch i put down the steam deck and i look around and this fire all around me and i'm like damn dude like i don't know it bums me out majorly of course which is the smallest of things when it comes to the amount of people that might be losing their jobs and people might not be affording things and all this other shit but yeah i think this xbox thing xbox thing is like the cherry on top of just a shitty week for video games and a shitty month and a shitty year and a shitty decade so far so my feelings have fun bless harley mizzy says i I could see Double Fine being independent again by the end of the year.

1:20:07That's an interesting one. That's optimistic. Yeah, I know. I mean, that's always my theory is that even if Double Fine gets closed, I think Tim Schafer immediately is like, all right, let's boot up our own business and rehire everybody or at least the people. It'd be nice to see them keep the name and be able to go. And we've seen that a few times now. Not often, but a few times now where studios have been able to get out, keep their name and IP and get going with it. Whereas when I wanted, I mean, you know, we could end whenever, but I mean, Mamasque has this one. I hate, I hate this, but game pass is going to have to go.

1:20:38Do you think we have game pass in a year? I thought game pass was the business model. I don't think so. I have no, yeah, I don't, I don't think we know enough to know anything right now. You know, this goes back to, they know enough. Yeah. Yeah. Sharma know enough. This goes back to the top where Greg was talking about the Sharma quote, specifically the part where the recommitment to Xbox and then talking about essentially putting things back into place. It's kind of the tone of it. I'm like, what does that mean? because if you are really committed to that, it might mean getting rid of Game Pass, but I don't think you can do that.

1:21:07I mean, I think we're too far gone. But yeah, everything is a streaming service now. It just feels like that is where we're at with entertainment, with life right now. Everything is a streaming service. So it's like hard to believe. It's like, we're going to cut Game Pass. If you cut Game Pass, I think you then... You cut everything. You cut everything, right? Like it's back to, all right, now let's move back towards exclusivity. But I think that's such a... That changes your revenue so much that I don't analytically, like on the financial analyst side, can you do that? Can you go, we're making all this money.

1:21:42Now we want to make not nearly as much of it so that we can try to sell the hardware that nobody wants to buy. I don't think you, I think that's asinine. Like if I'm in the Microsoft boardroom, I'm going, no, we're not doing that. We already took the genie. We already rubbed the bottle. The genie's out. Like we can't put it back. what a day what a week what a year any closing thoughts we gotta have like a day on the calendar where we only talk about good things that will be inevitably the day something bad happened yeah we gotta have a kfg day where it's like all right this is our day of ignoring all the bad news you know if the video games industry shuts down we'll talk about it tomorrow today we're just going to talk about how much we love mugenics you can have a mugenics day can i have a mugenics day We can talk about Mutantix, you and I.

1:22:31Yeah. Head's a little bit in a spin. We're going to talk about it throughout the week and throughout the month and throughout the year, which is the fun part about this job is, you know, we will continue to discuss this. We'll discuss it. We'll grow with it. We'll have different takes and opinions. And we'll also see if this team can prove us wrong or can prove exactly what we think is going to happen here. So today I'll leave the office going, man, that sucked. Yeah. But then we're going to show up on Monday. We're going to do it again. And we're going to see where it goes. I mean, that's the thing, right?

1:22:58Like. Yeah. again i don't think this was planned and i think it's pretty obvious and now you have a weekend of crisis pr to plan for and next week get matt booty and her on the podcast of xbox official podcast and talk about it and have something to say and whatever and like our job just to or don't and then prove us all right that you're there to fucking go through this with a fine-tooth comb but as blessing says right it's like as a gamer i'm gonna go home and i'm gonna forget i'm gonna forget about all of this because i'm gonna be playing fun good games i'm just gonna go and escape and play games right now almost forget about this if i was just a a normal game if i was mike in 2012 yeah i would never know you wouldn't even know because i would just be playing whatever game that i love right now i would not be this deep in the weeds but i am and so now i'm gonna i'm gonna sit on it i'm gonna look like barrett thinking about it for the whole weekend like that this is how i look every every look like of course you're not like mike 20 years ago you know all this because you watch kind of funny each and every weekday we begin the day with kind of funny games daily running you through the biggest stories in gaming then doing games cast with the biggest topic in gaming they're the number one and number two daily video game podcasts in the world after that we usually stream some games maybe play a game show maybe talk about movies but no matter what we got something you'd enjoy because we're all about live programming so go ahead like subscribe share youtube.com slash kind of funny games twitch.tv slash kind of funny games podcast services around the globe if you really like what we do especially when we come back live and rant through all these goddamn news stories.

1:24:25Please pick up a kind of funny membership. Patreon.com slash kind of funny. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Apple, Spotify. You get all of our shows ad free. You get 10, no, 15 to 20 minutes with me in a series I call Gregway, which is a daily podcast for my car. And of course, get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. For now, I believe our week's done. I don't think Nick and Joey are still streaming. I'm not sure. Yeah, I think we're going to be done. We're cutting it out here. We're going to go lay down on the couch and stare at the ceiling and maybe play some games.

1:24:55Have a great weekend. We'll see you back here Monday. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.