PlayStation is Killing Physical Games - Kinda Funny Games Daily 07.01.26

25:29As the PlayStation Store continues to evolve to support modern commerce systems, including updated payment processing standards, PS3 and PS Vita are no longer able to support these updates at the level required. We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players Who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming PS3 and PS Vita represent an important era in our PlayStation history So this was not an easy decision for us to make As we continue to expand the PlayStation experience on newer devices That most of our users are playing on today

26:02Andy Cortez:We need to focus more resources on delivering the best gaming experiences On these platforms as we look ahead towards the future as an old Beyond reference towards the digital future. I love the sentence starting off with, after nearly two decades. It almost feels like a, look, we did this for like two decades, guys. You motherfuckers aren't playing your Vita right now. You're lucky we did it for eight years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so again, like to partner this up with the conversation of moving to all digital on the heels of Monday's late breaking news of we're taking all this shit off the store.

26:37Andy Cortez:Like you're not inspiring confidence PlayStation. And this is back to one of the big arguments people have of game preservation, right? Of like, okay, well, we want to be able to play things in 15 years. What do you do when the store is all down and you didn't buy that game yet? Well, you're fucked. And like, granted, right now you'd be fucked and you could go eBay, secondhand stores, antiquing and find a PS3 or Vita cartridge, right? But theoretically, going forward after January, 2028, if slash when this happens to PlayStation five games slash PlayStation six games, you're fucked. unless of course PlayStation was to completely pivot and become what steam is where steam is you ever bought a game it's here we just need to make a big old website big old library just you could play it on the web that's what I'm going to learn how to do okay that's my next project you're going to have some legal hurdles well I mean fuck you then you know what did I do I don't know, but that's what I'll tell them.

27:34Okay, good. I like that. I like that. Yeah, I always think about games like Fortnite and Roblox and how helpful and hurtful they've been to the industry. And mainly hurtful in the way that executives have just completely misunderstood what they are and what they do. And people, numbers people, you know, if you're a numbers guy, you yeah thank you barrett i heard the barrett laugh um i love a good barrel um if you i'm a numbers i'm a numbers guy um met you i'm a numbers guy uh if you understand if you don't understand the industry but you're making a lot of these decisions you know it's like putting me you know in charge of a fucking whataburger franchise like i don't really know what i'm doing there And I don't really understand the environment.

28:30And I always think back to like, if you, if there's a plaza, a strip mall, and one of those restaurants sells burgers for 50 cents and they cannot fucking keep these burgers on the shelves. They sell them on the shelves, by the way, Greg, the burgers are on the shelves, physical items. That's disgusting. They are far and away making the most money at this place. and then outside analysts go damn do you see how many you see the revenue that this whole uh block of plaza is doing they are making fucking handover we got to build three other restaurants in there and they're like they're only there for the 50 cent burger though yeah they're not going to eat at your places you are setting yourselves up for failure and that's what so much of this is it's analysts looking and anytime there's a quote about the industry makes more than movies and the music industry and it's like it's fortnight and roblox and you know whatever other free to play game and that's what the industry is that's you know i'm just gonna throw a you know bullshit estimate out there but that's like 80 90 of the industry you need to like you know brought it up on a episode of games daily a while back but it was uh one of these matt piscatella articles talking about that 18 % of people buy two or more games a year.

29:53You need to focus on the 18%. Act like the other fucking 72 do not even exist. It is just the 18%.

30:02Andy Cortez:And that's where we're coming back to. I did the math wrong there. Did I? I think it was 16 % he said are the people who buy more than two games a month or a year or whatever it was. But that would mean that it's 84. 84, not 80. I said 72 instead of 82. My bad. no you got you got the yeah no i think that's exactly the reality we live in and i think that's why you're seeing xbox fail playstation fail less than the limelight flounder will say uh and it is them coming to that reality and i and you look at you know ten cent the saudis all these people who invested gajillions of dollars not actually doing their due diligence they looked the headlines they saw the success oh video games are a booming market we can get in there and we do that and then they got in here and realized how fucking hard this is yeah oh shit this is a bad investment and so now they start taking a bath on it and that's why you see everything apparently you know appear to crumble but we're gonna see a lot of that money dry up like it's i mean it's already oh yeah it's already happened right but i i it it reminds me of when the industry was at its when it was at that boom where everybody was throwing money around like nobody's business and then and then you see you know a lot of big companies from china and then you know the saudis start to invest in a lot of this stuff and then i think back to even yesterday when we were at lunch and joey asked me hey what happened to live golf no saudi backed golfing thing where they you know poached a bunch of golfers from uh pga tour to go hey we'll pay you all this money and that thing got shut down because there just was not that return and they are slowly discovering the error of their ways in a lot of these big investments.

31:49Damn, it just was not, the juice was not worth the squeeze. Why did we invest that much money in this thing? I'm already worrying about whatever the future of Evo is going to be. And anything that has this big investment from these big corporations that don't fully understand what they're getting into. Yeah, yeah.

32:10Andy Cortez:So then I guess my other question becomes well i mean well i have thousands of questions right personally here's where i am and i i'd be interested in any on your interpretation of it okay because i did my greg way one way then we started reading the story and i thought maybe another way and then i'm back channeling with somebody who i'll i'll leave nameless because this is just on background or whatever it's not a thousand like when i when you read this story let me just give it to you this way is ea gonna keep making PlayStation discs for PlayStation 5 for the foreseeable future. Because that's what we're talking about, right?

32:48PlayStation is stopping making discs, but PlayStation can't tell anybody else to do it. But since PlayStation is PlayStation, now you have to do another ripple domino effect, where if I'm EA and I'm making Madden, and let's take the Saudis out of it. Let's get all the, you know what I mean? Like where we're going, who the fuck knows where we're going, right? If the Saudis are out of it, well see this is the conversation i'm having people are saying but sony prints all the physical discs i'm aware of that but sony does that this isn't sony saying hey and for the record the

33:22Andy Cortez:person i'm back chilling with who's very smart is like that's not it's not clear exactly where we're at right now in this conversation gotcha sony makes sony makes blu-rays and makes all the discs yes playstation is saying we're no longer making our games on disc but playstation can't say to EA you're not allowed to make discs unless Sony was saying we are done making Blu-rays which would also be hey we are done doing physical movies so my interpretation right here is that PlayStation is saying we are no longer making discs for our games which then leaves Ubisoft EA whoever else okay to make discs but obviously not for PlayStation 6 because PlayStation 6 ain't gonna fucking have a disk drive i think we all in the run-up to this we're like uh project helix isn't gonna have a disk drive obviously is everybody's trying to get these fucking boxes to be as cheap as possible disk drives gotta go because we're not it's not even what's going on whatever right so anyways let's just for the second is that was that in your your reader were you reading i was i was reading diskless because i think it's honestly a weird maybe even moot point because for playstation to say we're no longer making discs even if I'm right you're gonna go fucking make a disc if you want to everybody else everybody else has to go well fuck why would I do that there's no reason for me to do that if that's how it's going to be like it's just like I what is the reaction Sony's blog post talks about they're still gonna have the box there with the code or a code maybe it's a card like it's been for everything else right so is that enough to make target and Walmart still give them shelf space?

35:03Because you still have people who are going to come in and say, I want Madden. I want college football. I want Hogwarts Legacy 2.

35:09Andy Cortez:They're not going to understand that they can only go do this. I still wonder if, and I'm even like, I don't know why I'm throwing this out there and putting this energy out there, Greg. But like, are these companies that awful to go? well there's still a market for discs what if we just charge you know that extra premium for them yeah you know there's people that still want these things we don't have to print as much so let me jump back on if you don't mind me interrupting sure yeah because i think immediately what i'll do is bring up this fucking quote that i've beaten into the ground we're going to monetize the existing fan base that we have right and so i think when that you look at those charts that Matt put out that Steven put out and you see this exponential climb in terms of digital sales and exponential decrease in terms of physical sales.

36:00Andy Cortez:PlayStation is literally sitting there going. It's just not there's not worth it. Like, and that's, that's part of the problem in quotes here is I am many emotions today on all of this, right? Most of it, just fear of the unknown of what happens from here where we go but again like i can't sit here you can't sit there person listening and watch and act like we didn't have a hand in this i saw so many people today say oh man i've been part of the problem but i didn't want this to happen you know it's it's that thing of we all we've said forever vote with your wallets and so many of us have been voting with our walls the digital and so when you look at these charts in black and white it's like well yeah like the physical market that is still there is not enough to be sustainable for playstation to care about them and yeah could they we're only gonna put out discs and they're only gonna be a hundred dollars and this is gonna be a thing they could but i still think somebody in the bean counting room is like yeah but why would we like the hundred dollars we'd be getting from them is so outpaced by us not having to print the disc do the thing yada yada yada get them in here always sell the game at full price not lose the money to them trading it in or doing their thing or lending to their friend, like they're like, no, the math ain't math.

37:12And so it's like,

37:14Andy Cortez:we all played a part in this. If you're upset and like, again, I don't, I'm personally not upset, but maybe it's because I'm, I'm worried. I'm scared of the unknown. I didn't see it. I'm shocked that it happened today. It's out of the blue kind of thing. But it's like, I do think we were always going this way. Is that good or bad or whatever, but we're here. And now we have to deal with that actual ramification of what we've done. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's one thing to understand that you know I mean it's similar to like I mentioned earlier with newspapers it's like yeah I don't I read my news on my phone like 99.9 % of the world but I'm still bummed out that this option is being taken away you know what I mean and of course we all played a part in it you know I it kind of gets me even more sad that like how hard will it be able to find these things?

38:13It feels like you are removing such a massive part of just the idea of going out somewhere to buy a product. It feels like you are like, again we can still do the box with the code inside or whatever and you know people will still people who are used to going to Target or going to Best Buy or I know Best Buy has Stopped physical. I haven't been in a Best Buy in years. They stopped Blu-rays, I believe, like movies. Yeah, it's. We're all nostalgic for a world we don't participate in anymore. Yeah, I mean, I get more sad about the idea of, well, how the hell will people try to play these things years and years and years down the line?

39:00You know, it really does feel like. It feels like just history being, you know. And so then. Put down the drain. yeah you're not wrong i it's again you're a great example of it right uh of how you stream games

39:18Andy Cortez:and how you go back and play old stuff and how you consume things that way i think there is i i also would have been able to play 50 simple on the sand exactly with ray exactly but i mean like he bought me the disc and sent it to me it's this i don't know because i feel like this starts to sound like I'm on the bad guy side, but it is the thing of like, how many people are doing that? And like, and I'm not saying it doesn't deserve this. I don't like, I don't even like where I'm going. I'm not thought out in that opinion. What I do like is we're talking about what's going on. There was a BS. That's a blue sky, Tim from lost in cult today, who of course does a bunch of physical collections puts out discs as a company on a mission to preserve video games.

39:57We are deeply saddened by the recent news from PlayStation on ending physical disc production from 2028. we aim to do everything in our power to preserve video games to the best of our ability and we'll continue to do so for as long as we can so lost and cult was i thought of them right away today i thought of im8-bit i think of even people doing really weird wacky shit like stick with me it won't sound right right away but like play date where they made their own thing and their physical like i wonder as our market contracts as our hobby contracts and we come down to who's this core

40:30Andy Cortez:gamer that's going to stick it out. I wonder what things are going to rise up in the place. Nothing will ever be as I shouldn't say ever, but none of the things I'm thinking of would be as big as a PlayStation. But what if it was a bunch of indie devs who were like, no, fuck this. We're getting together and making something like a play date, like a Game Boy. We're only putting things on a cartridge. It sounds like a terrible investment, but if you had this passionate audience that wants that kind of physical experience, but it was hilarious. You see companies like Analog making their... Yeah, of course.

40:55Analog pocket.

40:56Andy Cortez:You know, this morning at breakfast, all this is happening and I'm like, Ben was talking about something. I was like, Ben, do you want to hear something crazy? He's like, what? I'm like, PlayStation is going to stop making physical games in 2028. And he literally goes, what's, what's the physical game. And I'm like, right. Remember when Tim gave you one cartridge, you won one cartridge. Like we, they come on discs too. You've never seen it on PlayStation. Cause every time you play any of your games or want a game, I click by, or I download right there. But it's like just right there. I'm, you know, the dinosaur already talking to a spaceship.

41:24Andy Cortez:Doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Like I, you know, part of me gets sad and sad for the nostalgia. aspect but of course for me it's mainly the it's mainly the in the future you will take away my capability of playing the art and the and the experience that i own yeah and that i owned if i want to go watch citizen kane i can go buy citizen kane and watch citizen kane right yeah a movie from so far long ago that's from a different era but i could get it and i can experience and i could have it whereas like we're talking about eventually it's going to get to okay I got to go on if YouTube's still around and find a full play of whatever.

42:02Andy Cortez:360, PlayStation, whatever. 50 cent blood on the sand. Everybody, believe it or not, there's still a lot more bad news ahead. And we couldn't cover it without your support. Head over to patreon.com slash kind of funny, youtube.com slash kind of funny games, Apple, Spotify, pick up a kind of funny membership where you get all of our shows ad free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller, in a series we call Greg Way. And of course, get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. so here's a word from our sponsors hey things have been really hard lately things have been bad in the industry we're on games daily talking about bad stuff all the time i just want to say thank you thank you for watching us thank you for listening to us thank you for sharing us with your friends or whatever it is i'm not even asking you to do anything right now i just want to say thank you hope you're having a great day and if not i hope this made it just a little bit better i don't know but thank you this summer prime video takes you back before legally blonde before law school and into the world of Elle Woods in high school.

42:59Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is, until her family moves from Bel Air to Seattle. Packed with iconic fashion, 90s nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one thing. Law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of Legally Blonde, watch Elle, a new original series only on Prime Video. Watch now. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com. From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy.

43:35Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50 % off site-wide, plus huge savings on doorbusters, right now during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com. Tim, now's not the time. Get the positivity out of here, Tim. We appreciate you. It was your birthday yesterday. We had a great time. Had a good lunch. What did he know? Yeah.

44:01Andy Cortez:How did he know this week in games would be so bad that people would need a pep talk? Yeah. You think about that? What happened in Mexico? What happened in Mexico? Come on. Let's talk about what's happening in Seattle. Number three is a three-peat of terrible news out of the Microsoft camp. the overall head is the layoffs and cancellation reports get worse at Xbox. We'll start with 3A I'm going to knock them all out and then we can jump in, okay? 3A, Xbox weighs canceling Blade Game and shuttering Arcane This is Tom Warren at The Verge Microsoft is set to announce a wave of layoffs for its Xbox studios and employees next week.

44:37Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the layoffs will lead to studio closures or spinoffs, potential mergers of studios and canceled games. I understand Microsoft is currently weighing closing at least five studios, including the developers behind Marvel's Blade. Sources tell me Microsoft wants to cancel Blade as part of a wave of cost cuts and job losses that are planned for the company's Xbox gaming division. Developed by France-based Arkane Studios, best known for the Dishonored series, Blade was originally supposed to debut later this year, according to sources familiar with the game's development.

45:11I'm told the internal ship date for the game slipped to late 2027, and it's also running over budget. While Microsoft is weighing canceling Blade, it's also exploring options to sell Arkane Studios. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Microsoft is trying to spin off Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory 2. GamesBeat reported this week that Microsoft is actively looking for a buyer for Undead Labs, the developers behind State of Decay. If buyers are found for these studios, then they'll avoid being closed, but sources stress these talks could take months in some cases. Beyond the potentials beyond even on a bad day, you got to do it.

45:48Beyond the potential studio closures, Microsoft is preparing for a wave. Do me a favor. When I die and you read my obituary on whatever show we're doing, make sure you put a beyond in there and do the beyond for me.

45:59Andy Cortez:Okay. Okay. I want to make sure everybody knows it. You know, I do it to myself. Call and response. Yeah. Microsoft is preparing for a wave of layoffs at Xbox that will drastically reshape its gaming division. These layoffs are due to start on July 6th, according to sources. and will hit most parts of Xbox. Rumors have suggested that there could be at least 1 ,000 job losses, and if Microsoft goes ahead with five studio closures, then that's at least 500 employees impacted before the wider cuts. Continuing on, 3B. Concern for State of Decay and Undead Labs as Xbox layoffs reportedly loom. This is W-Y-P.

46:34That's Wesley Ian Poole at IGN.com. There is fresh concern for State of Decay 3 and its developer Undead Labs this morning after reports overnight surfaced and suggested both are under threat of closure as part of the impending layoffs at Xbox. GamesBeat reported on work being done behind the scenes to find a buyer for Undead Labs, which is based in Seattle, Washington, a report that was backed up by Windows Central. If a buyer can't be found, the report indicates Microsoft may cancel State of Decay 3. Then you're like, well, at least it's only affecting the owned and operated Xbox Studios. Absolutely not.

47:083C, IO Interactive, announces layoffs after Xbox pulls out of Project Fantasy. This is Sal Romano at Gamatsu. IO Interactive has announced layoffs following the end of its relationship with an external partner involved in its February 2023 announced Project Fantasy. Xbox has confirmed to Bloomberg, following leaks from the FTC versus Microsoft court proceedings, that it is the publishing partner in question. Quote, We are not reducing our overall investment in games, a Microsoft spokesperson told Bloomberg. We expect to invest about the same in content as we did last year. What's changing is where we're investing in the kinds of projects we're backing.

47:46End quote. Xbox itself is reportedly planning to announce a wave of layoffs starting next week that could result in the closure or spinoff of at least five studios. It's part of a, quote, reset for stronger Xbox. End quote. Hinted at by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Here's the full message from IO Interactive on the layoffs. Dear gaming community, for a good while it has been all positive news from IO Interactive. We remain humbled and honored by the response to our latest outing with a young unproven bond, a bold new story, and a take on one of the most famous characters in entertainment, which the world has embraced with love.

48:22However, today we have to share some more downbeat news. A relationship with an external partner on our own intellectual property, Project Fantasy, has come to an end. This means we have to adapt to this new reality and its short-term consequences, including staffing decisions, which is what is happening as we write this update. And we are fully committed to supporting those affected through this challenging transition. Project Fantasy is a game, a world, and an intellectual property that we absolutely love and remain 100 % committed to now and in the future. This wonderful universe will see the light of day.

48:58Where do you want to start, Andy?

49:02um well first off since we since we talked about playstation for about 43 minutes sure it's like it's like it's like it's like fucking campaign ads or some shit or we're talking about candidates we have to be a yeah we have to give uh playstation's gonna sue us like trump sued 60 minutes you gave it you gave us too much time dude it reminds me so much of politics legitimately Like, it's like, it's not a blue versus red, or it's not a blue versus green thing right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a rich versus us. This is the ultra-rich versus us, right? Stop fighting each other. Worry about the fact that these people with a lot of money and these people still getting gigantic bonuses are killing the hobby that you love.

49:47Yeah. Like, focus, you know, we need to focus. We need to focus, people. the thing that makes me the most sad of all of this and this is like you know ranking which is the saddest uh relative death that you've had like it's not a good thing this is you know ranking your children and start at the top i'm assuming right the the the the arcane stuff is if any of this comes to fruition and maybe it is you know i don't know how much of these leaks and reports are calculated on any part is this testing the waters is this a you know i think back to when we just saw the senua trailer and then we get the news of hey uh you know there's may not be some great stuff happening with ninja theory and you go was this obviously they were thinking of the news they were thinking of closing them down before or thinking of selling them or whatever the hell before that Xbox showcase, but was showing that trailer in their eyes.

50:54They say, Hey, we were just kind of gauging interest, but how many, if that trailer got a shit ton of views, would they go, Ooh, maybe we kind of keep this around.

51:03Andy Cortez:Absolutely. Maybe this is something that we want to work on. I think I'm sorry. So I'm just wondering like how much of this is them testing the waters. and as somebody who listens to a lot of sports radio, there's always the insider agents that put out a press release and it's like, ooh, who's that for? What sort of mental math is being done here? Are we trying to, you know, just try to get a really good deal for Arcane? Or are they saying, wow, a lot of people are not super stoked about this. By far, this is the least, the most that they are the least stoked about, about us possibly letting them go, we can't let them go.

51:44This could result in, you know, decent money for us if we let them, you know, put out this game of Blade. And also just like, poor Blade, man. Good Lord. What a cursed IP. Jesus Christ. What a cursed IP. We got Redfall.

52:01Andy Cortez:We did get Redfall. I think as we live in this world of the Xbox reshaping and restructuring. I think that like the way they used Senua, the way they used State of Decay inside of that Xbox SGF showcase was a garage sale. Like I don't think there was any amount of interest they could get from those games to go, oh, we're going to keep the studio around. I think it was strictly now you can say, hey, we're ending ties with these people and either trying to spin them off and they're trying to buy their independence or maybe we could try to sell it to somebody else of, well, look at the wish list.

52:43Andy Cortez:Look at the numbers on the YouTube video for Senua. Clearly there's an idea. Look at how activated the State of Decay audience was. There's that. But you get into then, I am shooting blind here on a lot of it. So feel free to you're wrong when you're keeping me honest. But you get into IP rights real quick too. I'm like, well, is Xbox going to sell off Undead Labs and the State of Decay IP? Are they going to do what I think was a good guy move from Square right when io left like you can take hitman like we're not gonna fucking bust your ball we're not gonna make hitman you can make him and i'm sure it cost a pretty penny i'm not saying it was like just hey on the way out parting gift your gift bag has the hitman it's like oh igian lets you say beyond still do they i keep running from parrots why doesn't it uh yeah it's i mean that's the that's what is like for me so to jump into what's the biggest one i think in terms of the headlines right of blade and arcane arcane what a talented fucking studio blade what a fucking IP.

53:38Andy Cortez:God, I want to see that game. And so it's like, okay, well, if Arcane goes away from the Xbox thing, and they spin off independent, and somebody buys them, whatever. If Arcane's allowed to live, because that's really what we're talking about in a lot of ways here. Are these studios allowed to live? Or are they sentenced to death? It was mentioned in one of the articles, but like Double Fine. You know we're in Double Fine's corner. We love Tim. They're local. We're all SF. I want them to come out of this as an independent studio again and be able to go. Again, that will lead to staffing reduction.

54:07Andy Cortez:that'll lead to a whole bunch of different problems and financial peril, et cetera. But like, even if our cane is able to win their independence and go, I don't think they walk out still being, having the blade of IP. Like I just, cause now it's not only, not only are you not no longer talking about like Senua owning or Xbox owning Senua, Xbox owning state of decay, which I assume, but I'm not a thousand percent correct on. Right. You're now talking about Xbox lets the studio go, but Marvel games still owns the IP. And if it's over budget, it's all this stuff. Now you need someone to keep paying the button.

54:36Andy Cortez:it's like that's a that is a fucking clusterfuck of information which makes me think that arcane would be one of the ones to close that you're just like well no i'm not gonna want to deal with that headache we're not gonna you can't spin off and be independent because there's i assume too many people you can't sell that to somebody because there's no game for them to keep going for if i'm third party x and it's like oh yeah i'd like to buy undead labs and state of decay then there you go just keep going we transition and go easy solution you do a control f find on and you just change the word blade to something else.

55:04Andy Cortez:You know what I mean? Just do that. Just say it's a different IP completely. Just cut us some slack. It's some other vampire guy running around doing his fucking thing. Yeah, man. It's like I, on Games Daily last week, talking about, you know, the continuous struggles with blessing and how it's so hard to just not be angry at the whole current state of the world and to be sad about, you know, this current, you know, presidency and past presidencies. I'm not just singling out because I hate him and, and, you know, he fucked kids and he's a pedophile, but like, um, the, the idea that there are, yes, it is so expensive to make a game these days and it is so expensive in these big expensive cities to staff, you know, 300 200 people yeah that are each making minimum 90 to 100k a year but why is that required because we can't fucking buy houses and that's why they need to be paid as much as they do because the the housing market is shit everything that we're trying to buy is the most expensive thing ever yeah and it's just this awful awful system that we're living in and look like there doesn't seem to be a big way out of it i'm saying i'm saying this give me give me elon musk's money i will you imagine i would be so awesome i would be i would be the worst billionaire ever trillionaire whatever he is now i know he lost like 21 billion dollars um poor dude um i would be the i would just fund every everything greg yeah um and i wouldn't i'd be okay with you know living off of you know 800k a year you could do that you can make that that'd be for the basketball court mainly sure yeah of course you i'd have three of them you and lebron i'd have three courts it's just it's just such a sad situation because the it really is like everything is connected in these awful ways and uh i almost wonder what the future of these large studios look like with reduced staffing and what even would be a triple a game anymore yeah what you know don't get me wrong i love a double a game i love an indie game i love a small budget game i love the most bullshit titles you could think of yeah um but it just doesn't feel like any of these studios have confidence right now like right now you would not ever green light intergalactic heretic prophet you would never green light you know i don't think so interesting i just i i think they look at the money behind it like if right now you were green lighting spider-man 2 because spider-man 1 came out however long ago and you were in charge of green lighting spider-man 2 and you would say, wait, we're doing all the math here.

58:14And this is going to cost 200, over 200 million compared to what the last one was, which is, I don't know, estimates say like, you know, 80 or whatever. It's like, there's no, like, absolutely not. Fuck no. And it's just. See, I think, and if you don't mind me jumping,

58:29Andy Cortez:just boil down what you're saying because I think there is truth in that. I think what you're talking about of the scope of a AAA game getting smaller. Yeah. No, no, no, no. We're not giving you double what you did before to make the games smaller, shorter, reuse the engine. Let's go. We'll still get people like God of War. Still a huge name. We'll still get God of War. We'll still get Spider-Man, but they're not going to be sprawling. Here we go forever. I know you. I mean, those budgets just don't even feel like they're not feasible anymore. Yeah. I don't see any executives like, you know, if we were to do Monday morning quarterback, but you look back at past budgets and go, would we okay this today?

59:06Yeah. No. No, like, hey, shave off 100 people from that team. Do what Remedy's doing with Control Resonant, where they say we want, you know, Alan Wake to not the biggest seller. Control, luckily, was able to sell a decent amount. But Control Resonant's going to be a$50 million budget title because we have to pinch pennies where we can, you know.

59:31Andy Cortez:Well, again, this is what we're talking about of what the industry looks like in five years and what it looks like in 10 years. And I think you're on the money of like, people have to be smart about what they're doing. I did a Greg way recently in defensive double a games is what I called it. Right. And it was basically my vampire, the masquerade bloodlines to review, right. Which is a very double a game. I think I gave it a 6.5, but had a great time because I wanted to be a vampire and I was a vampire. Yeah. But one of the things I complimented to this day about is how smart they were with their assets.

59:59Andy Cortez:I'm running around in open zone, Seattle. They gave a story reason why you can't go outside of it. Right. But I'm only going into a few different vampire-run businesses or whatever, and those vampire-run businesses. I can't go into every store. I'm going to very specific. I'm a vampire, so I'm going to go hang out with the vampires. So I'm going to this pawn shop run by a vampire, this bar that's run by a vampire, this other bar that's run by a vampire faction we don't really get along with unless you play it that way. So it's like you have these environments that look fucking awesome. The lighting is amazing.

1:00:30Andy Cortez:I want to show you the pawn shop in particular. It looks so great, right? But what they did is they have you throughout the game going back to those over and over again and going back to them over and over again in different time periods. So it's like, let's make one environment and use it in three different time periods. And like, we have this voice, this cast, that's all things said and done, you know, 14 different talking characters, maybe more, but like small compared to a last of us. Right. And it's like, let's be smart about our resources. Let's get, you know what I mean? And it's like, that isn't a knock on the game to me.

1:01:00Andy Cortez:That was a really smart way for a small team to make a really cool game in a cool story and like that's what we're talking about in terms of going forward and all these other things and how you do this as these companies reel from it and that's the problem is like Playstation Xboxes you already see are reeling from hey we're going to be the biggest thing oh fuck we spread ourselves way too thin we're not making the money everybody's pissed and so as you retract yes people are going to have to be smart with their budgets. 90 million dollar budget for Spider-Man 2018 and obviously five years later or whatever for Spider-Man 2 but 315 million dollars yeah that's like I would never think that Sony would green light a game with that budget today.

1:01:39They would say, hey, Spider-Man makes us good money. Knock that shit down to 200, maybe. 180, 150, whatever the fuck. Deshaun Super Chats says, I hate the context in which it's happening,

1:01:51Andy Cortez:but I'll gladly take more Miles Morales' and Lost Legacies over bigger games. Yes. Again, this is the idea when you talk about how GTA 3 gave you Vice City, gave you San Andreas, right? Of like, oh, we have the engine. Let's just make a bunch of games in it rather than, and granted, we're a long show and I'm trying to shorten a lot of everything, but it's like, yeah. Why did we need, did we need to wait as long as we waited between The Last of Us and Last of Us Part 2? No, you could have had a couple different Last of Us is on that engine, right? Turn it faster, be quicker, tell us a shorter story, yada, yada, yada.

1:02:24Andy Cortez:Do we need the most detailed environments of all fucking time when you're in these random houses looting? No, you don't. And this is what we're talking about. Let's asset share, baby. I think to how beloved a studio like FromSoftware is and how everything they put out just seems to be gold. And it's like you could find the same animations through three of their games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they got so much of, and it's not even really a thing that we think about because everything around the game is so massively done. but you know you go oh yeah um um Slave Knight Gale from Dark Souls 3 that's almost that's like 80 % of the movement of of the moveset from Margit the the fell omen it's there's so much being shared between a lot of the the different uh titles being put out there it's like I'm not saying that other studios aren't doing that but let's do that shit more you know we we want we want you to thrive you know yeah 100 i think you just said it but i want to call it out because a little boy named snowbike mike in the chat said but didn't people complain about those smaller games being if uh more money or you know how much they cost and then in the twitch chat same same 28 said okay but the negative news around miles morales says the opposite but okay the people who are the most vocal about that are of course assholes and they won't be here when this shrinks.

1:03:53Andy Cortez:Do you love playing good games? Do you love playing video games? Just period. Like we are about to lose the fat. Like it's just how it's going to be. Like it's going, this, this community. And I mean, gamers, capital G gamers is about to shrink dramatically. Like it's not going to be how it's been where it's just, everyone's playing a game. It hasn't, we are going back into PS3 era beyond. Where it's like we are battening down the hatches and we are here, man. This fucking sucks, but I'm playing this great thing. And da-da-da-da-da. Like, you will have to accept shorter, smaller games faster. And you will have to support the developers you love in the same way we talk about supporting us on Patreon.

1:04:34Andy Cortez:I have a fucking, I can't wait for it, right? I fuck it up every time. The Blood of Dawnwalker. Read the Game Informer cover article. And I am so fucking jazzed for this game from Rebel Wolves. These people who worked, you know, over at CD Projekt Red. coming over here, making it. I'm fully expecting that to be, I hope I'm wrong. I'm fully expecting that to be a rough around the edges, double A, another vampire RPG. I'm in my vampire era. But like, I'm ready to support that game. Full chest. I like what they're doing. I like what they're saying. Is it going to pan out? Is it going to be the best thing in the world?

1:05:10Andy Cortez:I don't know. But reading that cover story got me excited in the same way reading the cover story for Vampire the Masquerade did. I want video game developers to do interesting shit. I don't want it all to be battle passes I don't want it all to be extraction shooters I don't want it all to be trend chasing Let's set reasonable expectations For what your game needs to do Let's make that game Really quick Greg just because people are bringing up Miles Morales just wanted to bring up This factoid of by June 2023 the game had sold 14.4 Million units worldwide turning a profit Of nearly 270 million for a 242 % return on Investment whatever like that They talk shit all the time.

1:05:50Don't know what the fuck they're saying. They're just being assholes. Sorry to cut you off, Barrett. Great job. Thank you, Barrett. Stop thinking about the PR of things.

1:06:01Andy Cortez:Mike. No, I'm kidding. Okay, let's give you a little bit of, I mean, it's bad news, but it's good news out of the bad news kind. It's a required reading. This is still on the Xbox front. We're done paying for executive failures. Unionized Xbox developers hold a press conference to make their point as Microsoft reportedly readies for mass layoffs. This is Cade over at IGN. It's required reading. So I'm going to read a few paragraphs, but I urge you to go read this, okay? Unionized Xbox employees are pushing back against the company's looming layoffs and have outlined various demands. Earlier today, the CWA, Communication Workers of America, held a press conference in which various unionized Xbox employees spoke out against Microsoft.

1:06:41The conference was held ahead of reported layoffs at Xbox, which insiders have stated will be a bloodbath. During the CWA press conference, speakers stated that they were growing frustrated as Microsoft hadn't given all of the union reps time to bargain, with one CWA member stating that Microsoft had sat on a proposal for four months. One member did give credit to Microsoft after the World of Warcraft bargaining team at Blizzard saw, quote, real gains this past weekend. The speakers also outlined what they want from Microsoft, including advanced notice of layoffs, two-year recall rights, the ability to be rehired if their position is reopened after layoffs, adequate severance, voluntary severance to avoid involuntary layoffs, and for Microsoft to transfer impacted staff to other studios or roles within the larger companies.

1:07:27They're also hoping to cement protections for all workers, not just those who are unionized. A Microsoft spokesperson told IGN that it is working with the CWA to find an appropriate agreement. Quote, We respect the right of our team members to make their voices heard, the spokesperson said. We have a long track record of good faith partnership with labor organizations, as demonstrated by the several finalized bargaining agreements our teams have reached with the CWA and our labor principles. We are continuing to negotiate in good faith with the CWA to reach agreements across Xbox, end quote. During the press conference, speakers said that they felt expendable and dispensable.

1:08:06Quote, We refuse to be left in the dark as the company decides to restructure in a way that seriously affects us all, said ZeniMax Online Studios senior encounter designer Morgan Goyne. We are being treated as expendable, valued one week and cut the next. Why would a game developer bother to put forward their best work under these conditions? hard work and great games do not save you from layoffs under microsoft that's why we're continuing i'm sorry that's why we're coming together across xbox to make our voices heard and demand real accountability end quote well said hell yeah go get them everybody go read that that's ign uh

1:08:43Andy Cortez:cate over at ign we're done paying for executives failures uh something we reiterate over and over and over again here on this very show and then number four a left turn for you persona live action TV adaptation is in the works of Netflix. I'm scared 21 laps and story kitchen to produce. This is Joe Otterson at variety. Netflix is developing a live action series based on the persona video game franchise. Variety has learned from sources. Christopher Moffat is attached to write the adaptation in addition to serving as executive producer and showrunner Sean Levy, Dan Levine and Robert Robert Atwood of 21 laps will also be executive producing and just keeps naming names and stuff.

1:09:24somebody's overseeing it you excited about this i don't bear it's probably excited don't speak for me i mean here's what i am trepidatious wait and see what was that word trepidatious okay i stumbled on it i heard a lot of words i'm saying today i'm saying a lot of

1:09:40Andy Cortez:words a lot of words yeah trepidatious uh you know i wish him the best persona's awesome i'd love it i people hated the death note live action show right i know this is not one-to-one or whatever but it's like a lot of things suck a lot of things can be good i don't know it could just be my algorithm yeah right but it seems more positive than negative that the one piece live action is enjoyable i think it's an exception not a rule based off of netflix live action and right off the right on the flip side of that not a lot of people loving what avatar is doing Oh the blue people suck Oh I'm Sigourney Weaver The animated good Avatar Greg Oh this is good No not this I should get back to it one day Yeah should you The cartoon?

1:10:32Oh 100 %

1:10:33Andy Cortez:If you ever finish My Adventures with Superman that's one you should be watching Jack Quaid support I want to I think that You should take that as a win That like I want to watch that I will take that as a game. But I'll tell you what, Greg, dude. You're not going to. Dude, I've been playing so much Slay the Spire 2. It is a sickness right now. It is. It is. I feel disgusting with how much Slay the Spire 2 I've been playing. And I always enjoyed it at the start when Slay the Spire 2 first hit early access. But it has fully hit a different level of seeing the matrix, seeing the way the systems intertwine.

1:11:09God damn, this is a good-ass video game.

1:11:11Andy Cortez:You want to talk about a good-ass video game? Pragmata. Oh! I fucking love this game Nice How far? I just got to the fourth area Of six So I'm doing pretty good Okay But it's like When they opened up the fucking VR stuff I was like I'm not gonna do this shit And then I came back And I was like I did it like for 30 minutes last night Just getting resources Unlock suits What a game Unlock suits Way to go That's my impression of you Yeah it was good What's her name Diana? Diana Let me give you one more piece of good news Yeah it sounds good Diana But it's like in terms of today's bad news this is breaking while we've been live uh over at the verge uh tom warren reports xbox testing disc to digital feature that digitizes a physical game collection microsoft will likely soon follow sony and stop the production of physical discs for xbox games but instead of leaving physical discs behind entirely sources familiar with microsoft's plans tell me the company has quietly been working on a disc to digital feature that will allow xbox owners to digitize their existing physical game collections.

1:12:12Xbox employees recently started testing this new feature after references to enable disk to digital appeared in the Xbox PC app code in May. I'm told that Microsoft's disk to digital feature will work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X disks only and not those of the Xbox 360 or the original Xbox console. Getting a digital copy of the game works simply by inserting a compatible disk and installing and playing the game. This will require a Microsoft account on an Xbox console and will grant a digital entitlement for physical games. The digital entitlement is tied to a specific disc, not dick, and it will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in on a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game.

1:12:53That sounds cool. Brand new information. Definitely better than PlayStation. Just flipping you off and walking away. We'll take what we can get. We'll take what we can get.

1:13:02Andy Cortez:But again, imagine if Xbox had any of this shit lined up so today they could fucking Imagine if they were able to throw it back in Sony's face after the fucking Adam Boy's Shuhei Yoshida video. If today Asha Sharma was like, eh. Yeah. Instead of like, I'm flinging everybody off next week. Instead of Satya Nadella, I was like, all you guys are gone. Asha, fire everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andy. Hey. Next week, I have a feeling it's going to be fucking huge, horrible news. But if I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go? You'd go to our last story, the We News channel.

1:13:37where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

1:13:44Andy Cortez:They high five a lot in the game. Oh, they do, yeah. Number five, the Wii News from John Walker over Kotaku. Nintendo's reported 10 % salary increase took place over three years ago. During Nintendo's recent shareholder Q &A, CEO Shuntaro Furukawa was asked a question about how Nintendo shares its profits with its employees. His reply was reported to have been that staff had been given a 10 % raise. Now it's been revealed after a delayed official publication of the Q &A that the Rays was referring to the... The Rays he was referring to took place in 2023.

1:14:19I thought that was like some good news. It sounded good for a second. It sounded good for a second. Makes me a little sad. PlayStation Plus Essential Games coming in July 2026 are Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 for the King 2 and CrossCode. Hey! CrossCode! CrossCode, y 'all. Alabaster Don, so much better than Adventures of Elliot. Thousand percent. From Noble via Bloomberg, Crafton has agreed to pay bonuses to the entire staff for the subsidiary Unknown Worlds Entertainment after Subnautica 2's success. That happened five years ago. In conjunction with the settlement CEO, Ted Gill has stepped down.

1:14:51So they got their money. Good for them. From VGC, a new Nintendo Switch 2 model has reportedly been spotted featuring a redesigned LCD screen. We have an image. As spotted by Nintendo Patton's watch, the updated model allegedly surfaced on a Chinese resale site and features a sharp LCD panel with significantly redesigned inputs compared to the standard Switch 2 model, suggesting it's not a minor revision. Cool. From Game Developer, Thick as Thieves, oh, don't do this to me. Fucking goddammit. From Game Developer, Thick as Thieves Developer, Other Side Entertainment has laid off another group of employees, marking another brutal loss for the Boston, Massachusetts-based studio.

1:15:30According to a company spokesperson, the company has parted ways with 18 employees working on its co-op immersive sim Thickest Thieves following the 17 layoffs we reported earlier in June after the cancellation of a game codenamed Argos. Thickest Thieves is so much fun and it is$5. Go buy this and buy it for your friend because it's a two-player co-op if you want it to be. You can play it solo too. Thickest Thieves, so much fun. Go support them, please. From VGC, a U.S. bill designed to stop paid games being terminated and being made unplayable in the future has failed to pass the Senate vote.

1:16:07What a fucking surprise. Our fucking system really always taking care of the consumer. The Protect Our Games Act, which was proposed by California Assemblyman Chris Ward, was put to a vote at the California State Assembly last month, where it won a vote of 43-16. Mario Kart World Update 1.7.0 adds two new routes to Knockout Tour, and you can now place stickers in photo mode. And then from Nintendo

1:16:30Andy Cortez:Life... They're really killing it with the content. They are fucking all over it. I can't put it down. They're giving you every reason to not play any other game. They're just saying, you stick here. You know what I mean? From Nintendo Life, Cruisin' Blast has been delisted from the Nintendo eShop. God damn it, dude. And that's it for Wii News. Sounds like my Thursday night Cruisin' Blast. Right, dude? Right. Now, You're Wrong just has editorializing, but we need good news so I'll take it. Freckler says, good news for a day of bad news. Today's Mario Kart update feels like they're finally digging into the potential of the game rather than just scratching the surface.

1:17:13The new Boomerang Rally knockout course is great. Oh, fuck me then. In your face, man. They're trying to, Nintendo's trying to bring the good news. Good job. Tyler Butcher with a$5 superjack says, some good news. Greg, your insane antics during Game Showdown are highlights to my week. Never changed. P.S. You were screwed out of stars in the bank. I was screwed. I stars in the bank. And now Tim is just unstoppable. He's some kind of weird juggernaut.

1:17:36Andy Cortez:I don't think you've ever been screwed out of anything on game showdown. Andy, I don't believe that Andy, the time the buzzer cut my hand, the time, all these times I buzz in and Roger gives it to Tim, the times that I give, I give an answer and it buss. I won't accept that. And then to like, Oh dude, he's like, I'll accept that. That's not a full game title. Andy, that's rude. You're rude. I expect better from you after our, we spent a whole night in that fucking streaming room together. You're saying this to the man who actually gets screwed over the most. Andy Cortez.

1:18:08Andy Cortez:Team Purple gets two stars one season. We'll talk. All right. Give me a fucking question. I know. What's so offensive to me is, first off, Tim doesn't even care that he has stars in the bank, which is upsetting. You know what I mean? He doesn't use it as all. And when he does use it, he's going to use it on me. But the funniest thing in the fucking world would be when you guys finally get a star to immediately use it. I would do it in a heartbeat this season. you're lucky I don't fucking have it because I would cash that shit out. As soon as you guys all celebrated having one, I would cash it in.

1:18:38Andy Cortez:Fuck you over to the ground. It's been a long show. We still have games cast and we still have a million other things going on because we're a live talk show network. So we're just going to give it to JB Cool on Super Chat who says, happy X-Men 97 day to all who celebrate. I'm excited to get Ben watching X-Men 97 because we read the little golden book all the time about X-Men 97. And I do the morph when morph comes around. Don't worry. I'll tell you what I'm excited about for Ben to play Splatoon Raiders. Yeah. You and me and Ben, we're going to play. We're all going to play? Okay, I didn't know that.

1:19:07That's cool. Is it three player or is it just two player? You can do up to four. Oh, no shit. Okay, cool. Yeah, we'll get Ben in here to play at them. Everybody, this has been another harrowing episode of Kind of Funny Games Daily. Thank you for being here each and every weekday for the news. Remember, sometimes it is good, but even when it's bad, we're all here to go through it together and remember that there is still light at the end of the tunnel of video games, as dark as it may seem in this moment. like I said go to steam uh go pick up some of these uh summer uh sales that are going on play some demos find your next favorite independent developer throw them some bones celebrate the double a games that are on sale right now I'm enjoying pragmatis so much and I can't wait to

1:19:43Andy Cortez:finish it and play echoes of the end have you heard of this game no came out last year middling reviews uh but everyone's like the story's great and then they fucking put out a they double down as a developer put out an enhanced edition where they went through and fixed like all this shit people talked about. So it's like everybody's like, it's a Greg ass game. That looks like a great double A game. I'm excited to jump into it. Recent reviews are very positive. That's what I'm saying. At 85. I got a knockout pragmat and get right to it. But I digress everybody. Like I said, Gamescast is up next.

1:20:15The boys are talking about are you on this one? Yeah, we're talking about Doom, the Dark Age and Rhythm Heaven. Revelations and Rhythm Heaven. That's going to be a good episode. Sorry we went so long, but everything sucks. So until you didn't know that, now you do. Like, subscribe, share, ring the bell. If you have Amazon Prime, you have Twitch Prime. Please give us your free 30-day subscription. Of course, if you really love the show, pick up a Kind of Funny membership. Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Apple, Spotify, wherever you can support, even if it's just watching, maybe liking, subscribing on a platform you don't usually use.

1:20:48It helps. But for now, until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. It looks pretty. I'm telling you, man.