Xbox Layoffs, Perfect Dark Cancelled, Initiative Closed - Kinda Funny Games Daily 07.02.25

28:42It's not an Xbox. But anyway, that's, that's another, that's another conversation. There's obviously plenty of money to be made in the video game industry right now. Sony can just do very well. PlayStation five is killing it. Look at the switch too. They're going to, they're going to make billions on that thing, right? Switch to already the biggest console launch ever. There's the people, the gamers are out there. So, but you know, the Xbox is increasingly struggling. I've spoken to game developers. will tell you that when a game comes out multi-platform, the number of copies that sell on Xbox as opposed to the other platforms is trivial.

29:12I look at certain games on my dashboard and I think there's kind of weird quirky games and I'm like, how many people are even going to play this on Xbox? It's a very small market for a niche game and then you've got essentially what is now a niche platform compared to the other ones. As soon as or later developers start saying it's just not worth putting these games over. you know and so i i honestly worry a little bit about like i'm already in the back of my mind starting to think about like the mental uh process of like transitioning over to playstation because that if you ask me right now which which plat i mean this is a fucking no-brainer mike which plate which which platform xbox or playstation would you have would you bet money on now still being around in 10 years which one uh yeah there's a no-brainer right yeah literally nobody, literally nobody would say Xbox.

30:05That's a fucking bad position to be in. Right? There is now, I'm sorry to say it, because I've always been an Xbox fan, I've always been an Xbox kind of booster. I used to host the Xbox, you know, we all love Xbox around here, and we know many people and like many people that work there, and I like what they're trying to do. I think they're all well-intentioned, you know, people who are really trying to make good games, and I like all the people there. But something is not working, and something has not worked there for a while, which is why I think they have essentially all but conceded the hardware battle.

30:38It'll be very, very interesting to see what they come up with next. Right? Because the Ally handheld hybrid thing, that ain't it. I guarantee you that ain't it. Maybe it's some kind of Switch-type dockable thing, like power of a Series S, but you can pick it. Maybe they just rip off the Switch like they ripped off, you know, everyone ripped off motion controls back in the day. I don't know, but I think Like what they are realizing is like the current, let's just ship another console and put Game Pass on it. That is, it feels like a dead end. So what do you do when you have to come up with a completely different model?

31:13And don't forget, Microsoft could just pull the plug. Microsoft is a massive, massive company. Gaming is a relatively small part of it. Satya and Adela could just decide one day, you know what? It's not worth the aggravation. Shut it all down. You know, and then it becomes like Atari. it's just a name but it doesn't mean anything anymore right i don't know it's i hate i hate having this conversation and again the story today is all the people that would um that are going to lose their job and have their lives affected through no fault of their own it's not like oh well you fucked up so you've got to go so we fucked up so you got to go the worst why does it always work that way the only thing that trickles down mike is piss and shit from the people above pissing and shitting on the people below that is the only trickle down economics that actually exist in our world today.

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36:16Hulu.

36:20Alright everybody, welcome back. Let's talk about what this means for the games. Perfect Dark cancelled. The initiative closed. This coming from Jez Corden over at Windows Central. Earlier today, we reported exclusively that Perfect Dark was on the chopping block as part of Microsoft's latest rounds of cuts. Now we can confirm the sad news. Today, Microsoft revealed broad layoffs hitting 4 % of its global workforce across every division at the company. Many of those layoffs are hitting Xbox, with staffers in various departments receiving notice today. Many of those affected include Xbox Studio, the initiative, which is sadly being closed.

37:02Perfect Dark was set to be revived of Rare's classic stealth IP from the early 2000s. The team at the initiative was set up in 2018 with the studio heavyweights, including Darren Gallagher of Tomb Raider fame. Gallagher's former team at Crystal Dynamics was working together with Microsoft on Perfect Dark, and that partnership has now concluded. Microsoft is shutting down the initiative as a result of the game's cancellation. Microsoft says it will work with staffers to provide severance and support and has encouraged developers affected to apply for other Xbox positions within the company to receive priority consideration.

37:45Xbox Game Studio head Matt Booty shared the following email internally confirming that Rare IP, Everwild, Perfect Dark, and other unannounced projects have been canceled. Windows Central understands that one of these projects is ZeniMax Online's new MMORPG Blackbird, previously meant to succeed the Elder Scrolls Online. We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild, as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio. As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative. These decisions, along with other changes across our teams, reflect a broader effort to adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our team for greater success within the changing industry's landscape.

38:40We did not make these choices lightly as each project and team represent years of effort, imagination, and commitment. Exactly, Gary. You're sacked. That's what that sounds like. Really quick, guys, let's jump right into it. Everwild being canceled from Rare. Perfect Dark and the initiative being shut down. And, of course, an unannounced project being canceled coming from Zenimax Online Studios. The next MMORPG codenamed Blackbird. Gary, you said it so well. There's the Matt Booty email from internally talking about this. But now we're talking about games. We're talking about studios on the Xbox side.

39:22let's dive a little bit deeper into that uh out of those three any big standouts to you i mean i think perfect dark is probably the the the biggest even though i think there was always a sense of like is this is this fucking thing ever coming out you know when they brought on crystal dynamics so this is one of those games that's always had just like a bad odor to it like you just get like a sense of like i don't know something's not right about this like they keep changing things and putting it back and now they're on another engine another developer like you just get a sense of like the just the vibes are off and this kind of feels like kind of like I mean, here's the thing.

39:53It's a big one, but like, this isn't the most surprising thing, right? Like, when you heard that Perfect Dart was canceled, you didn't go, what? They did what? They canceled Perfect Dart? Yes and no. Honestly, I was like, yeah, I kind of went like, yeah, all right, fair. I can see that, you know? But then, I mean, you look at this, obviously a lot of this is just mocked up, but like, it's so weird to see all these like high-end cinematics and what looks like a very polished game, Yeah. Playing right. As we're talking and the voiceover over it, sort of how this game is canceled and basically never coming out.

40:28This is a game that you will never see or play beyond just these initial, how much money did they spend? Well, millions, tens of millions. You know, but to what you're saying, Gary, I say it's a yes and or no, because if you would have, if you would have said this, you know, I don't know, about 13 months ago before last year's showcase, no, I wouldn't have been shocked at all. Yes. But the fact that you showed me this just a year ago, and now the studio goes away and the game goes away. Yeah, I am a little shocked by that. Everwild is the one I'm not surprised by because the moment they didn't show it at this showcase and if you go back to when we talked to Phil, I think that was 2023 when we had him on and I had said it then, I go, what the hell is Everwild?

41:10What is it? We don't know what this game is and we obviously will never know what it is now. And when it didn't show up this year in the showcase, I go, that game's in trouble because you're still not telling me what it is. So when these layoffs started being rumored, I was like, oh yeah, Everwell might be a part of this and then sure enough it is. Yeah, let's talk about Perfect Dark really quick for me. I mean, the initiative in 2018, bringing that team together, making it a small sleek team like we talked about on the X-Cast, being able to work with others to maybe bring certain games to life.

41:44I mean, we, you, me, Alana and Gary Paris, when we first brought this up, I said, who's clamoring for Perfect Dark? That was an odd choice. And I was surprised seeing it last year. I thought it looked really good. But I think the big red flag was we didn't see it this year, Paris. I was on the reaction saying, where's Perfect Dark? What are we doing here if we're going to have so many years of lead up, show it last year, and then this year not have it here at all? What are we doing? And, yeah, I think we clearly see what they were doing. They were getting ready to shut that whole studio down and cancel that project, which is odd, Paris, right?

42:18We talk about the portfolio, what games they need, how you succeed with more and more dominoes, as we've called it, right? And it's odd that you chose perfect dark. Something was really wrong at its core if this was one of those that you could easily write off, as Gary said, millions of dollars in hard work and effort to just say, yeah, we don't need it anymore. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'd love to be a fly on the wall, like in the room where it happens, right? because at some point this comes down to people in a room making a decision right and they're looking at okay here's where the game is here's what we've spent here's like all the you know current evaluations on the state of the game and where it's heading and the roadmap through to the end of development what that will cost how long it will take what kind of you know and then what the what are our reasonable expectations for how this will perform and what it will sell across multiple platforms because i don't forget they could release this on playstation 5 and Switch 2 and PC and other platforms.

43:13It's not just how many can we sell on Xbox. Yeah, of course. So they do have that going for them at least. And they obviously concluded, because again, it always comes down to money, right, to continue developing this game would just be throwing good money after bad. So better to cut your losses now and take that hit than spend even more money and potentially have like, because the game might have been in fucking awful shape. I mean, they could be looking at it going like, we're fucking nowhere with this thing. Like, bar like a miracle turnaround, like this game is not going to get where it needs to get.

43:48It could just be that, right? They just felt like the game wasn't viable. Not like, oh no, we could probably ship this and it would be really great, but like we just don't feel like it would sell that many. I mean, that's a decision you should have made like when you greenlit the game, right? Perfect Dark is not the biggest, you know, franchise in the world. That's almost frustrating. yeah yeah but that's kind of the frustrating thing about all of this is and you know we've talked about this over the years like these legacy ips that they just have sitting on the shelf that you potentially could do something with obviously i've talked about banjo forever which now i really don't think we'll ever see yeah but um you you announced perfect dark at the game awards in 2020 thinking oh wow here we go we have not seen joanna dark since 2005 maybe this is something you can do the initiative when it was started in 2018 remember the quadruple a studio was supposed to be this was supposed to be this premier thing and obviously all the troubles that happened like you said gary you bring in crystal dynamics and then you show us the game again that's what flummoxed me more than anything you showed us a vertical slice of the game whether it was rendered actual gameplay or not but that is an indicator to everyone that was watching that show last year that we're going to get perfect dark within the next couple of years.

45:06This is great. Let's see what it turns out to be. We, you know, the voice actor, actress, she had been talking about the game. She was excited about what it was going to be. And then here we are today. It's like, no, no, the, you know, the, the, the math ain't math and it goes away. Let's just close the studio altogether. So to what, to what higher degree is the math not mathing? Right. Again, so clearly, and again, this isn't a fucking existential problem. You know, it's like a cancer patient, you cut the cancer out, but when you go in, you're like, oh shit, there's actually much more than we thought.

45:41You know, this is not the end of the layoffs. And this may not even be the end of, you know, this downward. Because I don't think it's controversial to say that. I feel like Xbox has been on a downward trend for a while now. When's the last time they had a big win? Well, it felt like they were setting themselves up and have been having better wins. Maybe not the big massive win as we put others on, but like these past two years have been better for them. I guess the Activision, you know, like Call of Duty alone, right, is like can sustain a medium-sized company. So, you know, and, you know, Bethesda, they've got, you know, their portfolio and everything has definitely gotten better.

46:15But, you know, in the core battle, as has always been thus in the console wars, who can sell more consoles, who can sell more games, they clearly decided a while ago that along those lines, they cannot win. they're just going to get clobbered because they are getting clobbered right there's a reason why they don't put out numbers yeah but here's my frustration to your point about everything that's been going on with xbox just over the past i don't know 24 months or so i i i did think after last year's showcase i felt like okay now they they're getting their stuff together now we're seeing this clear vision of consistency of games.

46:56What Phil and Matt Booty had talked about big game a quarter. I felt like, oh, wow, they're actually at the point now we're going to be able to do that because I feel like since since late 2024 and obviously coming into this year and going into the holiday, they got a bunch of great games. They teased all the big flagship stuff is coming for the 25th anniversary year next year. OK, great. Game Pass seems like truly a great value now because you're consistently getting all this content in it. Right. But then when you roll it back and you look at it as a whole, here, here's my frustration. Cause we have not done an actually say this definitively, you know, me personally, I get a lot of shit for all the exclusivity changes going multi-platform and all that.

47:41Cause I obviously believe this is what they were doing back in 2020, 2021. My frustration isn't so much that they went multi-platform who who cares let people play wherever they want my thing is you did it during the middle of a generation and people made decisions back in 2020 to buy your hardware on the promise of exclusivity do you then acquire bethesda and double down on that and then when act again you did activision everything changed and it created confusion you had to do the business update it's just four games But then obviously we know Sea of Thieves and all that did great. It ain't just four games.

48:20It's going to be literally everything. I just and our number one thing that we've always talked about on here is their messaging and their communication. It is never been crystal clear. There's always been some confusion in what Xbox's business strategy is. What can you trust? now you're like okay people have finally started to settle in on everything this is an xbox whether you like it or not they're putting things on different devices and all that okay great actually that is a great consumer value add to this because i get to choose where i want to play instead of you telling me i got to go buy your box okay fine but then today happens games we're anticipating closing studios all that it it leaves you no choice but to question the future you have to You have to question going into their 25th anniversary.

49:10Are they really going to be able to deliver Fable and Gears E-Day and potentially a Halo remake? And is State of Decade 3 happening? Hell, there was the false rumor they were getting rid of Blade. Now you have to look at the stuff and start going. Is it true? Is it not true? I don't know. I still say today sucks. I get it. You got to say what you got to say today. I still feel they need to have a definitive message. I don't know if that games come into the year or whatever about what the hell the future of Xbox is, especially going into the 25th anniversary, because all of this does is create doubt in the brand, in the vision of what they're doing when you see stuff like this.

49:51So I don't know. It's, it's frustrating to me because I see so much good that Xbox does, but then there's the bad that comes with it that negates anything good that they do. Like I said, the vibes are off. And they've been off for a while. And it does raise questions about the existential future of Xbox. It sounds like there is going to be another hardware generation. I suspect it won't just be as straightforward. Here's another box that you plug into your TV. There's got to be some gimmick or angle or something to help differently. If they want to be successful, it has to have a gimmick or angle, like having an open storefront with Steam, Epic Games, having a dual boot up as a PC.

50:29That's the only way they can win it. All of that stuff is interesting. It's completely unknown, but it's interesting. And this is the thing. Microsoft, again, we don't like the traditional rules of the game because we're getting clubbered, right? PlayStation's selling more hardware. PlayStation's selling more games. PlayStation has the mindshare, right? So let's completely rewrite the rules of engagement and try to come into this market and try to exist and succeed in this market on a totally different set of metrics about what constitutes success. So like, okay, so we don't care as much about selling hardware anymore.

50:57We're going to come up with this is an Xbox, right? And we're going to essentially, if you've got an online connection and a web browser and a controller, you can stream these games. Again, that to me is very fuzzy because streaming isn't there yet. It's not an Xbox, but nonetheless, and then game pass, right? Which is the big thing. So it's not, we're not about to say it's no longer about selling hardware. It's no longer about selling games, which are the two pillars, right? And have been since the dawn of the console wars. It's now about putting out, putting out the platform where you can play our games on every device imaginable.

51:26You don't have to own the hardware and, and, and essentially a subscription service, a Netflix type subscription service for games, Game Pass, as opposed to buying games individually. That's it's, so that's all in trade. Again, if you're losing, you've got to change your tactics, right? And they have been losing. So they've changed their time. The question is, this is all completely unproven. We don't know how there's, they haven't been at this long enough yet for us to know if Game Pass is, is a successful business model. If this is an Xbox is a successful business model. All we know is they have clearly realized, serialized, the current rules of engagement cannot continue.

52:01They need to change the game. They're in the process of doing that right now, but we just don't know what the end result is going to look like. And again, if you're someone who's invested in the Xbox ecosystem and you're thinking about the future, which console shall I buy next or whatever, the Xbox just has a bit of a moribund kind of feel to it. Right now, there's not a lot of confidence in the long-term future of Xbox and whatever that means, Xbox. We don't know what that's going to be. Xbox is still going to be around in 10 years, but we don't know what it's going to be. Is it going to be basically what Sega did?

52:37Hey, let's just get out of the hardware business altogether and we'll just make cool games. Sega is still a major force, right? They got out of hardware more than 20 years ago, right? 99 % of games companies are not hardware games companies. There's only three or four, right, that actually make the hardware. Everyone else just makes games. So they may just decide that Xbox is going to be a gaming brand now. We're already releasing everything on – let's put Halo. Let's put Forza. Let's put Gears of War on PlayStation. They're already there. We're there. Yeah, yeah. We know that. Halo is the last domino to fall, but it's going to fall.

53:06Yeah, of course. Right? Yeah, next year it's going to happen. It's publishing, and it's a streaming service. Publishing your games on every platform, basically no longer having Xbox exclusives, and saying you don't need to buy Xbox hardware to play our games, to me suggests that they're not putting a lot of stock in selling hardware down the road, like Next Generation and P. Well, our audience will remember when Mike had a bad day and was uptight about Xbox a couple months ago and I said, this has not given me a lot of confidence that I should be investing my time and money into the Xbox platform because there's a lot of questions unknown.

53:42There's a lot of mixed messaging. All of a sudden, every single game now is on every other platform. Why should I continue to invest in this hardware if we're going to step away from it. And Xbox has a next generation guaranteed that will have to kind of be a put up or shut up. And the audience is also, the consumers, have a big opportunity here where, hey, we can go and buy your games anywhere. I can save money and get Game Pass anywhere if that's what you're saying. Why do I need this$500 box? I'm so interested to see what the next hardware platform, what the next hardware offering is. Because it can't just be another box, right?

54:17There has to be some unique proposition, something that differentiates it. I mean, that goes back to because Danny and I got to talk to Phil Spencer in January. And that's what I asked him when I was like, all right, you said there's no red lines or things. Why am I buying an Xbox? And he did say at that time, because we're planning to essentially do something innovative. We obviously see this handheld now. We see their integrated windows. We saw Sarah Bond talk about the partnership with AMD. now it all sounds great in theory you gotta execute on it i mean that's really what it comes down to you need to execute it on a way that i would get that and i go even though i could get this on pc or i could go play this on the ps5 or the switch too i want that box because it does something so innovative and unique it is still worth and let's be real the seven eight $900 is probably going to cost when, you know, when it comes out.

55:12So they got work to do. I mean, it's great to talk about this stuff. I mean, you know, Greg and I got hands on with the handheld. All the changes are making a window looks good on the surface, but what is it going to be in reality? What is it going to be when you, it's actually time to execute on this stuff. And then that to your point, Gary will determine if there's a future for Xbox hardware, because if this doesn't work, I mean, And if Satya Nadella, Amy Hood, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, whoever makes the decision, they might look at this and go, this is not working, let's just stop. I mean, for me, I don't know if it's like economically viable or technologically viable, but for me, if I can wave a Magic 1, the next-gen Xbox would be essentially, much like a Switch, a dockable handheld that docks into your TV, that is an actual Xbox that you can natively install and run Xbox Series games on it without having to stream them.

56:07And it also has access to whether it be the Xbox PC store, hopefully the Steam store, and it's essentially basically a Steam Deck and an Xbox together. But you look at the Ally X, which is like trying to be that and isn't even doing the Xbox games natively. That's going to be the thick end of$1 ,000. It's not competitive. It's a competitive market out there, Gary. People are complaining about the Switch being too expensive at$450. how would they bring in something that would actually be interesting but can also compete on price? Plus, we know Sony's doing a next-gen handheld as well, so that whole space is going to get more crowded.

56:42It's tough. I would not want to be the boss of Xbox right now because it's like, what the fuck do you do? How do you chart a path out of this wilderness that you've found yourself in? They should just focus on publishing games for all platforms with great games, and they should focus on this streaming service. That's clearly where we're at right now. Just put the ship there and go. That's where they're going to be. They can't be messing around anymore. Let's go and talk about some games. I want to talk about Everwild Paris because, yeah, you brought it up. That being canceled. Everybody, that's not the big shocker there.

57:16It is odd that we've strung that along for so long, but it is interesting to me. We talk about a company like Rare, right, having such a history with creative and different games, and that studio, the double-edged sword of how great Sea of Thieves is, how awesome and fun that game is to play, but now that studio is just Sea of Thieves studio. Will we ever see anything out of that? Everwild clearly should have been canceled a long time ago, and that team should have moved on, but now it's just this studio is Sea of Thieves. Will we see them ever get to play with something smaller, Paris, or do we think that as we tighten the belt, you just focus on that?

57:56I mean, to your point, this on the surface looks like, yeah, we're just going all in on on Sea of Thieves. You would hope Rare, the legacy of Rare, I mean, at this point goes back, what, probably 35 years that they would have at least a second IP that they would do. I mean, the banjos aside, Everwild was that opportunity. That's why I think a lot of us were excited about that. You think about Viva Pinata in the past, stuff like that, a cameo. Right. So I hope so. I hope this is not a rare is just to see a thief studio. Now I hope rare can get a second IP green lit and we see something else, but to the point of everyone, it's just, it's just, it's a bummer because I think all of us just wanted to know what it was.

58:39We were excited about the potential of what it could be. Right. And now, yep, they tried. We, we heard rumors that rebooted at some point and now it's just completely canceled. So yeah, it just sucks, but I do hope we get something else from Rare. I think one day we'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of that. And like you said, Paris, there's probably never going to be a clear definitive, this is whatever Wild was. I think it was just constantly moving of what it could be or what it should be. I don't think they ever had a plan of, this is what it's going to be. Because when we saw it at the beginning to now, the things we've heard about that, it seems to have changed multiple times.

59:15And another studio similar to Rare now, ZeniMax Online Studios, with ESO canceling its next MMORPG that was supposed to succeed ESO and kind of maybe move over to that. We just had Matt and Rich on from that team. We had a great Elder Scrolls Online podcast from the beginning to now over 10 years of ESO and how awesome that studio, those people, those incredibly talented developers are in that place. And they seem to be excited about the future. now it's crazy to think that future is going to be very much in question and also is it just going to be ESO from this point forward Gary you used to be a big World of Warcraft guy like myself I'm a big MMO guy and when I see some of these MMOs kind of get a little long in the tooth Gary they go on for years and years it's awesome it's special it's great to celebrate and it's cool that it's still around, but I have to assume the money is not what it was.

1:00:14You have to eventually have a new kind of big boot to it. And the idea of canceling what could be next is wild to me on that. I mean, first of all, this is the other human cost of, you know, the layoffs are one thing that's terrible. The game cancellations are also its own thing. Imagine working on something for seven years, right? It's a 2018, you know, and you come in every day and you think about how great this game's going to be and you crunch and you work weekends and you apologize to your family you know you got to do this and you've got all this artwork up on the wall like trust me i've fucking been there i've seen it happen and then it's happened to me and then one day you get a phone call pack it up you're done last seven years of work it's all going in the trash like how demoralizing is that let's talk about some tweets coming from jason schreier at Bloomberg on BS.

1:01:09That's Blue Sky Tim. He talks about Zenimax Online Studio. He talks about Zenimax. Here's one tweet. As an illustration of just how sloppy and chaotic today's mass Xbox layoffs are, some employees at Zenimax Online Studios are now watching their Slack accounts abruptly get locked out. No message from HR. No word on whether they still have a job. Just an anonymous Slack deactivation. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's always the most humanizing part of it. You come back to your desk and there's a fucking security guard there. We're going to watch you pack all your shit up into a fucking cardboard box. Can't have a better plan to lay off all those people?

1:01:46And then walk you out to the front door so you can give your security badge to the front desk. Let me just say, as someone who works in IT and security that have been gotten that message from HR or CTO or whatever about going to people that you know and having to disable their accounts, you know, lock their emails, do all this. And you can't say a word to them because, you know, we'll know days, maybe even a week in advance that this stuff is happening. It's the worst, man. It is the absolute worst feeling in the world when this kind of stuff happens, because these are people that you've you've worked with and known for years.

1:02:24You may even be close friends with them, you know, at certain points. And it's just terrible. It really is. Coming more from Jason Schreier and other Blue Sky posts. Many of Xbox's subsidiaries are getting hit by layoffs this morning, including Call of Duty studios such as Raven. Big cuts at Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10. Nearly 50 % of staff per source. Sorry, that's in poor taste. Poor taste, but it was good, Gary. It was good, Gary. It was good. That is a wild one there. Of course, Call of Duty having multiple studios being so big. You kind of see the ebb and the flow there. But, of course, they are the big moneymaker.

1:03:06That's always surprising. But turn 10 here, nearly 50 % of staff cutting that studio by half. Yeah, and that's one of their flagship brands. That's one of their flagship properties. You say the top three. What are the top three? Halo, Forza, Gears? Gears. Yeah, of course. Okay, so this is like their fucking holy trinity. Yeah, but now we go to Forza Motors or Forza Horizon, right? I don't think people think of Forza Motorsport like they used to with Horizon being so popular. It's funny because Motorsport was the original, right? Horizon was the spinoff. I love Horizon, but I don't play Motorsport.

1:03:41I want the one that's more accessible, that's more pick-up-and-play. The Motorsport game, great for the fine-tuners, the Gran Turismo people, but that is, by its nature, going to be a smaller market. You talk about that small market, right? The competition in that small market already to get that small slice of gamers who are into, I'm on the track, bettering my time, want the ultra graphics, want to have all the car details, and the wider audience is just, I want to bang into a cactus in Mexico on Forza Horizon, right? But now that market is tight, right? We see the rise of F1, the video game, getting a lot of popularity.

1:04:19Of course, worldwide global audience loves F1. You have Gran Turismo on the other side. Gran Turismo is huge. You have this. iRacing, these are all big games. Yeah, it just continues to get more competitive. and you see that probably with Forza. I'm sure that's one of those of like, hey, the audience just is getting smaller and smaller. It's hard, but 50 % is, at that point we're canceling the whole game in the studio there. Yeah, I mean, we don't know for sure what it, we're just assuming that it means that motorsport is going. I don't think it means they're going to continue to make Horizon and motorsport both with half the teams that they had.

1:04:52That seems unlikely. But yeah, my guess is that motorsport is either going or will be much less frequent in its iterations. Yeah, I mean, that's what I think. I think the focus is probably going to be on Horizon, which obviously Playground is the main studio for that now. And then I just don't think we'll see a new motorsport for a very long time. Do you think we see this turn 10 get kind of absorbed by Playground as we see Playground now making Fable and Horizon, so you might as well put those two teams together? i would hope not i would hope the legacy of turn 10 as a studio again remember they have been around xbox yes that that name in that studio would continue and maybe in the short term they're more of a support studio for playground for the horizon stuff but at a certain point motorsport gets green lead again they make another one and you know turn turn i like every better turn bring turn 10 back to a bigger present versus them just becoming a sub-studio playground.

1:05:59I would hope, but who knows? Obviously all this is fresh news. It's just one of those moments we finally see a sports game, this being racing itself though, become more of a live service title where Forza Motorsport is that just, hey, we're going to live and breathe this for a four-year cycle instead of two and just kind of give you car updates, track updates, and we're going to try to make this last longer than it normally would. Live service is a bit of a dirty word these days. I mean, there have been successes in that space, but there's automatically, when you say, oh, we're going live service, like the general reaction in the gamersphere is like, bad mojo.

1:06:36They don't like it. So that might be a tough sell as well. But man, I don't know. We don't know what it, you know, again, we're still, this is like one of those like breaking news type things where you're trying to like, it's almost all speculation because it's just too early to know what the hell is going on. All I know is it ain't good. It ain't good for the tens of thousands of people that are affected today. And it ain't good, you know, even though they feel like obviously it's a necessary thing they need to do. It does not bode well for the bigger Xbox picture, right? It's hard to put a positive spin on any of this.

1:07:10Let's talk about the bigger Xbox picture because Variety writes, quote, A source close to the situation has told Variety that every game featured at Xbox Game Showcase presentation in June is continuing on. So the future from that is those titles that were shown will be sticking around. Paris, I was pretty hard on that presentation. There was some Xbox titles shown there. Does this give you pause of like, hey, that's great, thumbs up? Or, of course, is nothing safe as we prepare for 2029? Emron Khan writes, who's prepping their 2029? Here's which games from the 2025 Xbox showcase were canceled list right there.

1:07:53Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, Mike. I didn't want to focus on what potentially could have been some of the quote-unquote silver linings to come out of this because today's just an awful day. And that's talk for another day, in my opinion. Yeah, I was told this before we went live. and okay you can say that today but you probably would have said that about all the games we saw last year too so it's hard to take it beyond just face value again until these games actually launching i don't know i don't know and i was go ahead and you're also already put in the corner when commenting on games from a showcase one a very uh slightly different topic but like all these games coming out in the next 12 months like they have a history of saying like making declarations about showcases that aren't true so well let me give you the quick breakdown because i broke them down during the show they showed 12 first party games i'm not including ninja gaiden 4 here which would have been the 13th three of those titles were live service updates eso fallout 76 and sea of thieves two of those will dlc indian age of mythology four of those were game updates already shown.

1:09:07Overwatch 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Clockwork Revolution, Gears and Tony Hawk, and three were new reveals. Call of Duty Black Ops 7, Keeper, and Grounded 2. So they weren't really showing games way out in there. They were already games we already really knew about. Call of Duty of course is coming out. Keeper, I mean, unless they're canceling that in the next six months from an incredible studio that is Double Fine, I don't think they're canceling that. And Grounded 2, we know, is coming as an early access title will be built upon for years to come, just like we saw already with Obsidian and Grounded One.

1:09:42So I think you can bet those games that were shown are all coming out because there's really only three of them that are new and different that we haven't seen. Clockwork Revolution, if that gets canceled, would be crazy. Gears of War, E-Day, there's no way they're canceling that. Tony Hawk and Overwatch 2, I mean, those are just happening now as we speak. So I think that's easy to say, like, that's easy. That's the silver lining easy of like, oh, well, everything we showed you this year, they're coming out. You didn't show me that much this year. So it wasn't that strong of a presentation. It also wasn't one where it's like we're batting for the fences, showing you a game out in 2029.

1:10:20They kept it really soft and easy this year. Yeah, I mean, because it goes back to like you were saying, you know, you and I joked offline about your, when you were reacting to the showcase and I was like, oh, I was surprised that you felt that way. Cause like you mentioned about perfect dark in that, why didn't they show it? And I honestly was like, well, you're not going to show it. You just showed it last year. You don't need to show it this year unless you have an actual release date. So I just assumed, all right, this is probably a 2027 game. They'll show it next year. No big deal. Well, no, here we find out you didn't show that you didn't show everyone because they're not coming out period.

1:10:58So it, it is hard to, especially today. Cause obviously all this news is, and you know, emotions are running high. I know I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a little upset about hearing all this stuff again, because of the people that, that have been let go. But the reality of it is you can tell me anything right now. It's going to be hard for me to take it beyond face value until you deliver. They're at a point now you got to deliver or people are going to be skeptical of everything. You've made too many changes to your business over the past few years that people can just rubber stamp it and say, okay, there's going to be skepticism to it.

1:11:36There's going to be questions about it. So like this handheld comes out, what has been the big topic about this handheld? It's not an Xbox. I agree. It's a PC handheld, but it has potential down the road. If they do everything that they're saying with windows, that it will be able to play your, your Xbox legacy library of games, which kind of does make it an Xbox. But until you deliver that, it's a PC handheld that runs Windows 11 home. Yes. You know, so sure. Concept, high level, all this sounds great about the future of what they're trying to do. They got to execute. By the way, maybe I'm wrong about this.

1:12:11I think I was watching Dave2D or one of the tech channels that I watch where he got in the new Ally X. It wasn't the Xbox branded one. The newer version. Or maybe it's the Lenovo, the Legion. One of them now they have a version that has no windows it just runs steam os yeah and he did a comparison between the two machines same hardware one that was running windows level one that's running steam os and the games running on steam os were noticeably more performant they were way way better and the conclusion was windows is just a shitty fucking environment for developing games when you have limited hardware resources it costs you a bunch of shit that you don't and i know on this new one they're saying we're going to strip out all these elements of windows that we don't need but it's kind of feel like you need a dedicated gaming OS, a dedicated environment, because, because these, um, the, the windows, I think has been demonstrated now.

1:13:02It's like not really be, not really be what you want running on your fucking gaming handheld, but here they are. They're going to do it. Let's see, Gary, to your point. And that video is correct. He, it was, it was steam OS and he was showing how performance wise, how much better it was on the same hardware. And then going to the, again, the briefing that Greg and I had, showcase i mean they were showing off the changes to windows and the point of you know we're disabling unnecessary resources we got two gigabytes of memory back in there because of the bloat again you bring up the laura fryer video from the other day and how her disdain towards windows we all get that and this is what they got to fix because if they don't fix it then none of this matters if you're pivoting your entire gaming strategy that what sarah bond said that we want to be the lead platform for gaming, right?

1:13:54None of that matters if Windows isn't streamlined and made more user-friendly and resource-friendly. So they got work to do. And talking to the engineers at the showcase, they know that. But you got to deliver. And honestly, until they can get it down to at least the price of a Switch 2, I don't see how any of it matters. Because, you know, that$700 or$800, what does the LIX cost? Like anywhere between$800 and$1 ,000, depending on the scale? I think it's$7.99 or something like that. That's an enthusiast product. That's not a mainstream product. Yes. It's a niche product. 100 % it is. Yeah. Some wild stuff.

1:14:28This will be news that we will talk about for the remainder of the week, and I'm sure next week as it continues to unfold, we get more information on studios, games, people. Here at Kind of Funny, our hearts goes out to all of the developers, human beings, employees that have been laid off today. It absolutely sucks, we feel for you. and it really, really is tough to have to report on and be a part of every single time. This sucks. Let's jump into a quick couple of Super Chats to try to get us out of here. Of course, like I said, we'll be talking about this for a long time here. D Cash writes in and says, future has never looked better, end quote, but the mass layoffs, fuck Xbox, dominoes either canceled or usually disappointing.

1:15:11Slap Xbox logo on some old hardware. There's no plan. Time for good guy Phil to go. Oh, D. Cash. D. Cash, feeling the frustration there. Pears, it's tough, as you said, telling us the silver lining. And, of course, the future has never looked better. It's never fun to hear when we have a day like today, right after all of that. 100%. CJ Splitson writes in and says, Gary looking svelte today. You're looking good today, Gary. I saw that early. He paid two bucks to say that. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yeah, Gary looks great. Do you think my hair looks great? Yeah. I said you look great.

1:15:44Oh, thank you. I lost a bit of weight. you're the best. D Jones writes in and says, it's also tiresome. Microsoft is just going to keep having layoffs and studio closures until only Call of Duty remains. See you all next quarter for the same BS. Paris, do you think we will see? I mean, we are currently seeing the focus on the pillars. Right? We've heard it from Ubisoft. We see a lot of games in the street now of like, we have to focus on the moneymakers and that is where we're going to be. Even Phil's memo really said like, we're going to focus on the things that are flourishing and that'll give us the future some of the things have to go though as we kind of start trimming the weeds here yeah yeah you know it's funny um like i i started playing planet of lana again the other day and and then the fact that you know the the sequel is going to come out look allegedly it's going to come out next year that's a reminder of what gaming why i love gaming is stuff like that and what we're seeing right now with this industry and how everything has to make a profit, you know, anything fails, you go away.

1:16:47Those are the kinds of games that are going to sell moving forward. Cause it's just going to play it safe. You know, something that we know is going to be a hit, a call of duty is going to be a hit. So we're making call of duty instead of making, you know, something. And I know double fines coming out with keeper, but thank God we got a double fine make games like that. Yeah. But I worry every time one of these happens, I worry about double fine. And I kind of feel like they're just constantly on the chopping block. And Tim Schaaf did not help things the other day, by the way. What did he do? He was playing Expedition 33, and he posted something on Blue Sky.

1:17:23All these rumors, and everybody panning, like, oh, my God. Is Double Fine going to be part of these layoffs? Like, everybody got worried, and he had to come out and go, I'm just playing Expedition 33. He took a screenshot of, like, the saying from the game, which is tomorrow comes, I think. Yeah. And then he immediately came out. He's like, I'm not smart enough to be doing secret messages. I'm just playing this game. I enjoy it. But seriously, Microsoft, if you fuck over Double Fine, you were like, I'm never touching Xbox. That's like the moment in the movie, in the crime movie, when one guy says to the other, but you went after my family.

1:17:58You crossed a line. You go over Double Fine, you crossed a fucking line. I'm going to go John Wick. Right, it's just about that. Remember when Xbox was going to revive some smaller old IP? does anyone feel confident about that at all no I do not feel confident with any of that anymore we will see what they choose and what they do not after that and that guys we got a lot of great super chats thank you all so much for writing in we will continue to talk about this we will be having a lot of discussion about Xbox the future of games the games industry and more but I got to get these two gaming dads back to a birthday party that's right I'm going to pick up the cake back to work and having fun with his summertime with his family.

1:18:39So thank you all so much for writing in. Thank you for the support. Leave some comments down below. Your thoughts opinions as we talk about this big Microsoft and Xbox layoffs games getting cancelled like Perfect Dark, of course, Everwild and the initiative shutting down and more. We'll talk with you guys tomorrow with more games daily but if you're watching live we will move in to today's games cast which is Mike and Andy and then the game stream which will be Mike and Roger playing more Death Stranding 2. With that, on behalf of these two incredible guides and myself, Snow Mike Mike, we'll see you on the next one.

1:19:12Goodbye, everyone.

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