Xbox Promises Pipeline of Exclusives, Rethinks Project Helix - Kinda Funny Games Daily 06.09.26

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2:06If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Today's gaming news stories include Xbox Promises, Exclusives, and is Rethinking Helix. Amazon Games chimes in on a 007 First Light sequel. and the knockout city studio is the one making star fox with all this and more because this is kind of funny games daily

2:35yo what's up welcome to kind of funny games daily for tuesday june 9th 2026 i'm one of your hosts blessing adio jr joining me is the one drinking a beer in the morning one beer whoa one beer i I mean, it's not really the morning, Bless. It's almost noon right now. So I can... 11 a.m. It's pretty close to noon. You know what I mean? They say it's almost noon somewhere. Blessing, how are you doing today? It's a little bit of a weird KFGD because, of course, before this, we did our reaction to Nintendo Direct and then we had the KFP and now we're doing games daily. Now we're doing games daily. Yeah.

3:06Everything out of order. I feel weird. After this, what's happening, Roger? Nick is going to play... A video game. 007. 007, you're going to finish it. He's going to finish 007. I'm really excited for it. He is three hours away from finishing it. at so he's right there so you guys can watch the conclusion of nick scarpino playing 007 and he's really liking it everybody as he should as he should as everybody should you've been playing 007 and liking it also yeah man i i'm in love with that this is the first time i get to talk about a concept for a little bit i mean like i i i blue skied this uh where i feel like this is the real sequel to splinter cell conviction that we never got hell yeah where it's like we had blacklist of course i'm not disregarding that but like conviction is like such an amazing action stealth video game and we don't get that much and like 007 is that it has everything and it's just it's kind of a perfect video game it's not like a perfect story i think i have some issues with like the actual narrative of it but like as a video game it's like this is peak fiction this is peak everything like i'm so happy with this and i just keep on smiling i feel like a small child playing 007 the entire way through and i have no connection with 007 i think just like you right dude i watched quantum of solace uh last night oh wow i mean i was bored but man casino royale though fucking great it's it's what everybody told me because everybody was like oh yeah casino royale is great quantum of solace takes a dip but then you'll get to skyfall and it's great right and i've i watched skyfall back in the day with like my best friend's family yeah it was a funny thing they it was me my friend abby and then her two parents and then after the movie her mom looks at me she's like i'm so sorry and i'm like oh what and she was like it's the sex scene i was like i don't care she was so she felt so bad she didn't realize it was gonna be a sex scene in a bond movie and she was telling me she was apologizing so profusely i'm like i'm okay it's all right it's all right she didn't try to like fast forward or do any of that awkward thing in the theater oh yeah they took us to see it in the theater yeah okay that makes sense yeah they can't do anything there but yeah i loved casino royale and then quantum saws whatever and then i'm i'm probably gonna re-watch skyfall because i've not seen it in so long yeah and now with the context of the other two movies i think it's gonna hit more but i want to go back and watch older 007 Yeah, because I'm the same way with you.

5:08Literally the same day, not on purpose. You and I both watched Casino Royale in different states across the country, and I fell in love with it. I'm going to watch Quantum of Solace. But then Nick keeps on telling me about GoldenEye to go back and watch that, the Pierce Brosnan movie. Yeah, it's really great. So I want to do that. I want to watch through all the old ones. Not all the old ones. The best old ones. There's too many of those other ones. What if in October, me and you, or in September actually, we put a bunch of Bond movies in a hat, and we pick random Bond movies, Yeah, there's going to be nothing else going on.

5:38We'll have so much free time. So much free time. I think that'd be great. That's such a good idea. We should do that with video games coming out in September as well. We should do that with everything. We should do that with movies. What if we did it with meals? We put random restaurants to add. I mean, welcome to the kind of funny streams with Mike and Roger. That's what we do all the time. I was telling you about this earlier where Subway, I think they're back. People were talking in the chat about subs and everything. I got hungry. They're talking about Quasinos. They're talking about Quasinos, talking about Subway, talking about all that stuff.

6:04And I was like, here's Subway's back. like that's what i was hearing and like the who's telling you subway's back the internet people people are like yo subway has like a meal deal every day which is like seven dollars not sponsored everybody but i just i just like talking about subs yeah seven dollars no sorry six dollars six dollars seven dollars seven no are we talking about a foot long or half long five dollars so you get a five dollar half uh six inch sub back in my day roger i know i know i know five dollars got you an entire foot an entire foot long entire foot long but they only do it for certain sandwiches just during the week week right so like one i think monday is like uh meatball monday right today is of course uh what day is it tuesday today's sadly tuna tuesday tuna tuesday that's a tough one to get at work i like a tuna sandwich i do but like i feel like i have to eat that in shame yeah like away from people the one time i brought a tuna sandwich y 'all all made fun of me yeah we did you remember this oh of course i do yeah i was making fun of you i've not brought in a tuna sandwich since that's a lie actually i've done it a couple more times it was really good Also, Chessing's Subway is not back.

7:04I'm just hearing Subway's back in terms of the price. They have protein pockets. Five bucks gets you 20 grams of protein. Not bad. I never liked Subway. What's that bread, though? You've been to Subway multiple times. I eat plenty of food I don't like. I just like food. You've walked in with Subway, and I'm like, oh, man, Subway. You're like, yeah, man. If they had a Jimmy John's beer here, it'd be over for you bitches. I'd be eating so much Jimmy John's. And granted, I grew up in the town of Jimmy John's. Many people don't know this. Jimmy John's is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. Oh, wow.

7:34Yeah. And so like in high school, I remember the day where they had like Jimmy John's people come through and they gave us all free small sandwiches. Oh, and I was like, this is great. That's pretty sick. It's better than my school lunch. Yeah, that's pretty sick. I had a pride in Jimmy John's. Then I learned about the man. What's wrong with them? Oh, Jimmy John's is not weird, right? Yeah. I always get him and Papa mixed up. Yeah. Jimmy John's John. Yeah. I know one of them hunts endangered species. and then the other one is falling off the bone. I think that's the Jimmy John's one. Are they not both the same person?

8:04No. One's falling off the bone? I mean, the one that's sweating? Yeah. I think they're both sweating. I think that's like the... I think they both have done interviews where they're profusely sweating. But I think Papa John's sweats more because he's the one that was eating all the pizza. He's saying slurs. Well, he's saying slurs. Yeah, on conference call. He's saying slurs and then also he's eating the pizza every single day. He's like, all I eat is Papa John's pizza and then he's fucking falling. I'm like, that's why you're falling off the bone. that was that was the peak internet like just seeing this guy talk about how he's eating like 17 pies a week the day of reckoning will come and i don't know when that day of reckoning was people thought it was covid maybe i think this all happened during covid i think it was before he might have been the patient zero he might have been bro let's get into the show of course if you're watching live you can be a part of the show by super chatting in over on youtube.com slash kind of funny games remember we couldn't do this without our producers over on patreon.com slash kind of funny so thank you to carl jacobs omega buster delaney the psalm twining and lax nomad for now what's up oh lax nomad's first time i hear that oh yeah shout out for now let's begin with what is and forever will be the roper report it's time for some news we have seven stories today oh starting with our number one xbox pulls gears video featuring a ps5 logo 24 hours after announcing it as an exclusive this is andy robinson at video games chronicle and roger you experienced it yeah you saw me at my desk putting together the stories for today's show yeah and just like you're happy i i'm i'm not happy anymore i think i saw the the breaking of blessing at one point he looked at me and said maybe i'm just maybe i shouldn't i should become the janitor kind of funny i don't want to do it anymore i don't hire i can't do it i like i was like what are today's stories what's the biggest stories it's like we already talked about all the direct stuff and so i don't want to repeat the conversation we had during the direct and i'm like all right what else uh xbox is doing five different things oh there's gen ai stories and i'm like what if i just you know what if we talk about subway all day yeah what if we just talked about subway instead yeah but we're here about it we're here we're gonna have fun though i we're gonna talk about this but then there's other fun stories to talk about the official xbox youtube account has pulled a gears of war e-day video after it was discovered uh it featured a ps5 logo the xbox podcast deep dive on e-day was published on monday and briefly featured a version of the latest trailer that incorrectly stated that the game was coming to sony's console on sunday xbox announced the new Gears of War as an Xbox console exclusive in a pivot away from its recent multi-platform strategy.

10:41The PS5 logo slip up in the Xbox podcast seems to support claims that the decision to make Gears an Xbox-only game was made at the last minute by its leadership team. Xbox's marketing boss, Aaron Greenberg, has denied the decision to make Gears Xbox exclusive was made at the last minute. Quote, I can confirm this is not true. We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group. Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching the showcase, end quote. On Monday, Xbox's new chief strategist attempted to explain the decision to make Gears exclusive alongside the RPG Clockwork Revolution, when in recent years it's been pushing towards a multi-platform future.

11:23Quote, this is the start of a program, Xbox's Michael Ball said during the Game Business Live. Quote, players can expect a A reliable pipeline that validates their historical investment in the Xbox platform, keeps them as Xbox players going forward. And everyone in the industry understands that exclusives are important to the growth and branding of that platform. It was important for us to include two titles so that people understood this was not a one-off. It was not commemorative. We were not saying it's our 25th anniversary. It's Gears' 20th anniversary. We're returning to Xbox. Here's an exclusive.

11:59End quote. xbox has said the two console exclusives announced on sunday are quote not timed exclusives suggesting there are no plans to bring them to playstation 5 in the future yeah that is yeah as of now yeah but that is part a there's there are two parts to this but starting off with part a roger what do you make of all this i don't know man i i we talked about this a lot on sunday uh during the game showcase for Xbox and I just I think I just get like kind of angrier and angrier the more I think about like this decision not because like it's affecting me personally or whatever I mean I have a PC I can play it but I think that also points to why I get angry about this right is that you're doing this on Xbox right so you're taking away I'm taking away but you're limiting the reach of what Gears of War a franchise that by the way desperately needs people to play it because Gears of war 5 and gears of war 4 did not perform relatively well and also the gears collect not collection the gears one reloaded whatever the hell we're calling that one that went to multiple platforms that also didn't really do great because people have played gears one a bunch like this franchise needs a huge hit and especially for the 20th anniversary of gears and this massive moment hey e-day's here everyone's excited about gears and also you should be trying to get everybody who has maybe a lapsed xbox fan even if they're outside of the ecosystem back into the xbox characters and Gears of War by putting it on PS5 and all these different platforms maybe even switch one day to limit it to Xbox console exclusive which by the way confuses people even my brother texted me and he was like man it sucks that I can't play Gears of War on my PC I was like no they mean Xbox only not on PS5 like it's on PC still like it's a confusing whatever side note having that there on only Xbox and then putting it on Steam and Xbox on the PC app is just confusing to me.

13:52I think that if they were going to do the clean, hey, it's only on Xbox platforms, that includes PC, we're not putting it on Steam, we're not giving them a 30 % cut, and we're going to try to move forward with that. But putting it on Steam and PC, and Xbox PC, and then only on Xbox and not PS5, I feel like is contradictory in the one thing that they're trying to be very specific about. And it just annoys the hell out of me because I think that this is going to lead to not the positives that they're looking for and all the negatives that we would hope wouldn't happen in the 25th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of gears of war and xbox respectively i i'm of a couple lines with it right i think my opinion is if you're putting the game on pc put it on pc in the right way and i think if you're putting on pc in the right way you're putting on steam sure like that is i think in the last decade of pc gaming or follow hearing pc gamers talk about it right epic game store other stores popping up everybody hates every other store that's not steam and so on the fan consumer side of things it's like oh hell yeah it coming to steam is a great thing is it weird for the xbox business i think a little but also i think it only makes sense to if you're going to put it on that platform put it on that platform in the best way that you can i think to the xbox console exclusive thing i i go back and forth on it and i'm not the same way they go back and forth on it right like i think sure gears is something that is a it's one of the xbox franchises when you're talking about xbox games you're talking about halo gears portza right like fable if you want to put it like there's an xbox big three big four big five however you want to quantify it gears is one of those and so if you're looking for the games to make exclusive gears is one of those games and i think yeah like there's the conversation of you are limiting this game's fan base so much but i think that's just how exclusives work as well like no matter playstation limits of the amount of people that can play a god of war by putting in only a playstation right like if you're trying to sell the platform yeah make it exclusive but yeah i i understand the frustration each and every way though because i mentioned this to i think it was greg yesterday where no matter what it's frustrating to some people it's frustrating to a certain amount of the fan base when it's oh you're going third party with everything why would i buy an xbox but then it's like okay we're gonna make our games exclusive why are you limiting the things all right we're gonna do both why are you making it confusing like there's no there's no winning and i sound like i'm trying to like defend xbox i promise i'm not it's more so the thing where i'm like i see all the frustration and i'm like i get all the frustration but i'm sitting here like there's no other choice like there's there's no there's no happy choice yes for sure and i think the real root of my frustration is that this feels we talked about this on the showcase uh after show is this feels like something you would do if the the console prices were what they should be right now at the end of the console generation right if this was a situation where you could get a ps5 gamer to buy an xbox series x for 300 400 whatever it is and be like okay maybe we can get a few of those gamers over here just so you know because by the end of the ps3 generation a lot of people had both consoles right because they're like okay well i had i was 360 gamer now i have a ps3 because i'm going to play uncharted and all this stuff at the end of the cycle because it's 250 bucks or whatever we're talking thousand dollar consoles here we're talking 800 plus consoles it's insane the prices and i do think it is a little bit tone deaf a little bit shitty to the gamers even to be like hey everybody we were going on this platform of everyone everything's an xbox we're gonna put everything on ps5 we're gonna choose this one specific game that we literally put gears of war the which is uh the reloaded on ps5 to kind of prime gamers for e-day which is quite literally what they were doing as we can see by the you know the podcast outro that had the ps5 logo like that was the plan here oh by the way we're not gonna put that on ps5 even though it's allegedly done roger asha put up a poll they have a new fan program and the fans are all saying they want exclusive what was that platform on x.com yeah yeah a platform that has no issues that you know people no bots no issues there it feels like she's listening to a very specific hardcore hardcore i would say two tapped in side of gaming and i i do think that you have to kind of look at the economic factors of this one i'm not saying that anyone's owed any video games i'm just saying like if you listen to the company that's saying hey this is what we're going for this is where we're going at and then you just pull this one game out of thin air and be like actually no it's only behind a thousand dollar paywall whatever it is four dollar paywall five hundred dollar payroll when you have to buy a series s or an x uh i i think it's kind of annoying and it's a little bit weird with where we're going where you know i mean they're they should just be multi-platform we're at that point where we have we see ps5 logos after state of decay 3 yeah it's like i don't understand what's going on here yeah i yeah i there's so many there's so much to dive into but i think what you mentioned right especially regarding price does feed into this second part of the story so let's get into it we got more xbox news from diego arguello at game developer in an interview at the game business live this past weekend via game spot matthew ball xbox's chief strategy officer spoke about the plans for project helix amidst the memory chip supply crisis driven by rampant investment in artificial intelligence data centers thanks reuters speaking about helix specifically ball said quote we are working very hard to rethink everything that we can about helix which is a console we are committed to shipping end quote for the time being xbox is rethinking what the console model can look like and trying to remain flexible but also mentioned the crisis may have acute effects for two or two and a half years well we're working very hard to figure out uh the best way to navigate it or a way that works for everyone that does not ask too much from players but also doesn't detract from the other investments that we need to make as a company he added we also have tens of millions of players who we ask to spend 500 which is still an incredible sum of money those people that we asked to buy a console years ago we still have an obligation to them to meet their expectations and to have them feel rewarded for which platform they chose and whoa i'm a little confused about that so sorry spend 500 they're talking about last generation i think they're talking about xbox series x maybe at launch okay i don't know how much an xbox i'm looking up how much an xbox series x is now definitely not that was at launch okay yeah i understand what they're saying there so i we have also tens of millions of people who we ask i i assume he means like asked in the past to buy these things and we have to kind of sure them yeah and it's it's interesting conversation because this is in regards to like rethinking project helix and all that stuff but also feels like it's talking about like we want to deliver to the audience that's already invested in the platform and try to make that the hardcore hardcore happy right like we want to we want to speak to them as well regarding helix helix i think is really interesting um because yeah we talked about the raising prices if xbox is to put out a new console anytime soon you imagine the number attached to that thing is going to be astronomical as far as what they've been saying about it being a step forward a technical marvel of what this thing is going to be able to do um but us knowing where we're at with prices and hardware and stuff like i think they have to be rethinking it everybody's rethinking all these things right whether they're talking about reports about playstation or even steam with the steam machine so like i want to know at what level are you rethinking this is it too late to go back into the bag and go hey or go back into the kitchen and go do we need to recook on what we're actually delivering like make it less powerful in order to hit a certain price making a project helix turn it turn it into a product that can actually speak to a wide amount of consumers as opposed to something that's gonna be super expensive and only the most high-end of players is gonna get see i think it i think it might be and i'm honestly this might be the smartest thing for xbox which i don't think fans of the xbox brand and the xbox console um brand are gonna love but i think what tim was saying on our post show is right of like focusing in on helix being this pro super you know super computer right that if you want to get into pc gaming if you want to get into xbox gaming it's all in one it is a pc it is an xbox all in one you don't have to worry about it for the next five six years you don't have to upgrade it it's going to be fire it's 1500 though but if you really want xbox games you can play it on series x you can play it on pc you can do whatever you want but if you really want the pro i think that is like in my mind the smartest thing going forward because like hardware is such a losing battle right now for xbox and especially i i do i keep on talking about the steam machine like it's happening but we don't really know when it's happening or what that's going to look like but you're going to have competitors in that space like you're going to have competitors in the all-in-one you already do in the all-in-one pc you know living room uh desktop computer slash gaming uh device so how do you kind of step aside and make that more interesting for people that are going to want to buy it, especially in this, you know, everything is$1 ,200, everything is$1 ,300, $1 ,500.

22:58Like, there's no way in my mind that Xbox is going to, or Microsoft is going to take a huge cut on this stuff. So, you have to position this for the hardcore of the hardest core. I don't think there's any way to drop this to a price where it is below$1 ,000. Yeah. I think that's the only way to win. Yeah. I think that's the only way is you, I think you have to figure out a way to drop that. And like, I, I don't have any answer of how that looks like. I don't know if it is the thing not prioritizing power or we have two versions of what project helix but then you get into the series s situation right but the series s and i don't know where we're at with numbers now so chat correct me or if you know like let me know i remember at the beginning of the generation weren't we talking about the series s outselling the x i feel like the series s at first we were talking about it as a success i know then we go on to talk about balder's gate 3 is not launching on this thing because it's being held back there was another game uh no rest for the wicked that they're not launching on xbox now because they're held back and i know that is a conversation on the development side but like depending on somebody says series s still is selling it was like continue to let me know it was because like i i think price is becoming more and more of the important factor of how to get people into or what is keeping people from getting into hardware right like the playstation 6 is not going to be inexpensive either like none of these pieces of hardware are going to be inexpensive if you can provide something that is inexpensive that is that will be an avenue for a certain kind of player yeah and i think that's an important avenue we're just in a weird place man where it's like genuinely it's like i i understand everything needs to be bigger and better to sell things but i think we're at the point now in terms of an economy in terms of player base in terms of people people are looking for people aren't necessarily looking for the most ray trace thing in the world i'm talking about like the normal gamer yeah they're looking for lateral moves that are cheaper that are able to play the same games that they are playing right they want to be able to play their their entire library in a way that is cost effective and they're not necessarily looking for i think back in the day we were i think going into the ps2 three even a little bit of the four but now we've just hit this this place where it's like i i do think lateral thinking is kind of the best move and i think you are right in that in that sense but then I also think about it right like right now I'm actually using the ROG Ally which I was telling you about earlier like I love that one the ROG Ally X I believe it is I adore it it's awesome and I use it for handheld and I also use it as a docked machine so it's basically like my steam machine and it's like it blows my mind what I'm able to do with this thing like I'm talking like 1440p 60fps you know of course I'm using FSR and all those up-reshing stuff but it looks awesome on my 4k you know OLED TV yeah but I then I thought about it and was like how much is this like a thousand dollars right like it's like these things are even even the thing that i would say hey this would be a great way if xbox wanted to do a series s or x of the um helix they could just take one of these and kind of strip it apart and make it into a steam machine type box but it's selling for a thousand dollars so it's like can you actually get that thing below six hundred dollars there's no way i don't think i don't think removing the screen removing the controller is going to do that but i think even when we're talking about us being into next generation this is insane to say right but like a thousand dollars is better than fifteen hundred dollars sure you're gonna need no matter what the cost is you're gonna need a lower cost option even if the lower cost option ends up being 900 that's what i'm saying like this is like we're all in a losing scenario here where it's like the economy is not gonna get better the next four years so like it's like i don't think it's gonna be a gradual gradual shift of us getting to that point where people feel excited to buy a console again and you have to have that hook and i just don't think we have that hook especially xbox like i think playstation can come out here and say ps6 and i do think that there's a huge amount of people that will just buy it just because hey i play madden every year on my playstation i associate that with what i want i'm just going to get a playstation 6 you have a very small amount of people now that are dedicated to the xbox brand and it's been diluted too much so i don't know i i we say we say we we talk like we don't talk like we have the answers but like this is an impossible situation for asha and her team oh for sure and i don't and i do that's the reason i'm angry about the exclusive part of it is like you just need to go down one road and you're going backwards in a way that i think is hurting everybody interesting yeah um i wanted to bring in the quick thing here because the headline part part of the headline and part of the uh in the first story that we read there was them talking about um kind of like the pipeline of exclusives so i want to talk about that real quick because i think that's important as well so we're talking about exclusives post gears and clockwork revolution what do we think those are i mean blade it's got to be blade blade you got to make blade unless there's some marvel deal which who knows but blade would make sense blade you're not doing spyro fire is gonna go everywhere they already announced that oh they did okay i don't know what else xbox has other than yeah quote this is the start of a program players can expect a reliable pipeline that validates their historical investment in the xbox platform keeps them as xbox players going forward and everyone in the industry understands that exclusives are important to the growth and branding of that platform what's interesting there is like the first half of the sentence is interesting because when we talk about exclusives historically i've always viewed exclusives as hey the reason why we have these is so that we can sell you on the box more the first part i know maybe this is pr talk but them talking about you know we're going to reward your historical or we're going to validate your historical investment in the xbox platform i don't know there's something about that where i'm like is are you doing the exclusives because people told you you should have exclusives that's what it feels like because it doesn't mean sorry i know we're talking about this in circles but i just had the realization of this all of project helix right project helix is going to be an xbox slash a pc it doesn't make any sense to me that you're putting gears for on steam because in the future when you have project helix people are just going to buy all their they're not going to buy anything on the xbox side of things they're just gonna buy everything on steam because everything on steam is cheaper so people are going to buy helix boxes to then boot into steam exclusively and use it like a steam machine like that is what that thing is going to be used mostly for so i don't understand like i don't think they understand what they're going for here because they would have thought through that of hey we need to get away from steam because even though there's a huge user base there we are giving them 30 % just like PlayStation.

29:22So it's like we're, Apple's, it's the same thing. It's the same thing to me. Yeah, but players care about consoles. I know, I know, but it's like, you're the same thing though. You're looking at it logically in terms of like, what the fuck is your business plan here? It's the same thing. It's like even worse, honestly. It's like, well, you're giving, okay, sure. You're talking about PlayStation. Yeah, you would have had to give 30 % to them, but you're giving way more of the PC audience that could be buying Gears of War E-Day on the Xbox app and giving you 100 % of the money. Yeah. you're taking a 30 % con on steam yeah just because it seemed that people will use steam you're talking like you're talking like a player that actually is like so what is up with the business right yeah so yeah i feel like most of what the response feels like it is too and this is this is why i get frustrated when i see them chiming in on twitter and like it's that thing where it's the it's the uh monkey spot thing of we want these people to be more vocal we want the executives and like the people who work at these places to communicate with us more but then i see them start to communicate.

30:15You're talking to the wrong people. It's like Interstellar banging on them. I feel like most of the feedback they're getting is, hey, don't put your shit on PlayStation. It's like, is that coming from a place of you want the business to survive, or do you just want people on PlayStation not to play the games? It's a weird world we live in. Let's get into a better world. A world full of espionage and stealth and a lot of flirtations. A lot of flirting going on in 007 First Light, and I like it. But Raj, before we get there, I want to flirt with the audience and tell you about a lovely place that me and you can both go.

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34:53Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See Home Depot dot com slash price match for details. And we're back. I want to bring in some super chats, actually. I know I flirted with y 'all. I told you about some James Bond, but let me dive in deep. I'm not flirting. Cameron Ken says, if you're tired of talking about Xbox shakeups and AI, it might be fun to speculate on how much GTA will cost. How much do you think GTA 6 is going to be, Roger? I don't fucking know. I'm going to say$80. I'm going to say$100. I'm going to say$120. I'm going to say$200. um lewis lewis writes in cameron and says it's wild that xbox says multiplayer games will go multi-platform yet gears multiplayer is exclusive why cripple your max player account and sales ahead of release i mean i think they probably view gears as more of a single player thing but i understand where you're coming from there el capitan writes in and says i mean the only thing they could really do quickly and easily to make helix cheaper is cut out oh i see i read this in the wrong way i mean the only thing that could really do quickly and easily to make helix cheaper is cut out the pc aspect otherwise you're essentially talking years more in rnd does that make it cheaper though i feel like that part is quote unquote probably the easiest part of it like oh it just boots into windows we already have the infrastructure there yeah i think it's you're just making a windows pc but you're dressing it up like an xbox yeah exactly and you have the dual boot situation i guess maybe that's what they're talking about yeah i don't know i don't know we don't know anything the tan dog says who cares if the xbox exclusive plans are muddy you know who is who it's not confusing to you xbox players they're getting the games regardless yeah but i don't want to dive in i'll dive in but like i feel like take the bit you know what this is what i keep doing roger and this is what i'm gonna try and stop doing i'm letting twitter get in my head yeah because i keep seeing the gamers on twitter's opinions they're not real and they're not real they're not real people they're not real people it's in the words of succession you're not you're not serious people and so you know what yeah we're just gonna move on thank you tan dog and i'm not calling you tan dog a twitter gamer i'm saying i was about to give an opinion that was informed by other gamers that you will then get clipped out and then put on twitter and there'll be a whole cycle big curves says i highly doubt project helix helix is actually going to be allowing steam that may have been the phil slash sarah plan but not current xbox not happening we'll see i mean it'd be it'd be really interesting to see them pivot from that to your point like i think that kind of makes sense as far as if you're focusing it on the xbox platform let's get back to the xboxness of this xbox console yeah how far along are they though in these helix plans like i that's a tough ship to turn around like you mentioned right it's like when you're when i'm when i think of helix yeah i am thinking of just a powerful pc that we're going to dress up like an xbox and has a dual boot but it's just at the end of the day it's just a pc if you're going no we're going to continue with the console that feels like something that you're then doing from scratch now.

37:44So that's tough. That was the worst decision you could possibly make. Like, I'm just saying it out loud right now, Asha, if you're listening, don't ever think about that. No, you're not. You think you sold, like, not that many Xbox Series Xs this generation? Woof! Next generation, when people don't have any money and everything, no, it's not gonna happen. People are not gonna buy the Helix if it doesn't have a connection to PC. It's not happening. Do not do that, please. And then one more from Cody Brahman, 5247, says, xbox is willing to take short-term loss for long-term brand investment people forget there are 35 million xbox users so you could easily get 5 million copies sold still this tells me elder scrolls 6 will also be exclusive i don't believe that number 35 million xbox i do not believe that number that is is that number that was the number chat let's talk about it where did that number come from because i saw asha sharma talking about that number and i have a feeling that that number is just people booting up the xbox app on their windows 11 i mean maybe yeah That doesn't feel like active users of people using Xbox Series X's and S's.

38:46I got a thing now. Oh, Kotaku, we got ads. Okay. The service has over, I think it's Xbox Game Pass having over 35 million subscribers. Okay. Mid 2025. I'll take that. And yeah, this is pulling from a story. Actually, didn't include today, but I'll shout out, right? It's from Rebecca Valentine at Kotaku. Xbox Game Pass lost millions of subs when it hiked the prices last fall. um it was a lot of xbox talk so i wasn't gonna include every single xbox story but i wanted to shout 28 million sold okay and that was from 2024 uh that last uh updated number yeah and that's just the console sold yeah so active users okay and the pc game pass of course is big yeah i know that that is probably i was gonna say that number doesn't really surprise that doesn't surprise me but i just wanted to know because i saw a huge number and i was like are we just you know flubbing the numbers like netflix or whatever like oh there's how many hours people use our app but it's like people go to sleep and then just auto plays a bunch of shit right like what does that look like but okay that's fair um i want to bring in some breaking news fire emblem is 80 physically it looks like uh this comes from tim gettys and slack which comes from spawn wave spawn wave on uh twitter which comes from which comes from a screenshot of the nintendo store uh that looks like yeah 80 for for fortune's weave their physical which would say probably$70 digital there.

40:12Yeah, right. Is it$10 difference? Usually it's a$10 difference. However, we got orbitals stuff here. Okay. Orbitals physical release confirmed. $50 physical,$40 digital. Not bad. For orbitals. $40 digital is great. That's not bad. Now, do you think they do the hazelite thing of you can have a friend play for free with you? No, game share. That's what they said. So you, yeah. But it's going to suck. it would be two frames per second yeah yeah okay that's cool i actually for some reason expected orbitals to be 30 i don't know why but i don't know why i expected this to be 60 i have no idea why but yeah that totally makes sense hell yeah good for them roger story number two let's talk about bond james bond will 007 first light get a sequel the boss of amazon games responds this is from simon carty at ign io interactives 007 first light has wowed critics and already reached three million sales in its first two weeks of release but that success has also come with confusion over the future of the series due to comments made last week by amazon's gaming head by amazon's head of gaming i should say jeff goddess uh who goddess you know who said that sequels will be done quote done by mgm and theoretically by amazon game studios end quote to clarify the situation ign spoke with goddess at summer game fest about what the development and publishing of subsequent james bond video games could look like quote first of all let me set the record straight for you said goddess i did not confirm that amazon i did not have sexual relations with that woman james bond with james bond maybe he was really i did not confirm that amazon game studios is publishing the next one did not say that so he's cranky about it he's like why the fuck was that which i get honestly because everyone's very bad so unfortunately it got picked up and once it runs it runs no io's been great they've been great partners in fact i was over there visiting them in copenhagen a couple of months ago the game's doing great let's let the game breathe and have its day end quote understandably the uncertainty over io's ability to carry on making the new series it's established caused a certain amount of worry with fans who would love nothing more than to see hitman studio continue its bond origin story quote trust that we're going to be smart about this goddess reassured players i mean it's market appetite as long as we feel there's a desire for players to have the game it's safe to say it's going to be made end quote to try and get as much confirmation as i was ever likely to in this interview i once again asked if 007 first light being on track to turn a healthy profit was as much of a green light as needed to get the next entry into production goddess's answer quote seems like a sequel should be made and quote and that's coming from amazon games that's a confirmation for me baby next week he's gonna be like i did not say that i didn't say that i did not say i was talking about the movies i was talking about yeah i was talking about a sequel to the double seven games gonna be a movie uh that's exciting though yeah it is exciting i actually want to go really quick go back to like this the original story that he's saying i did not say or whatever yeah i'm gonna have a hot take right here i think it's good if amazon games publishes the next one.

43:25The reason why, I don't think IO Interactive is a great publisher. I don't think they're great at the marketing of these games. I don't think they're great when it comes to showing off some of their games. And they have issues when it comes to marketing materials and stuff. And I do want them to have a little bit of a more... I feel like this game should have felt bigger when it was leading up. And I think it could have shown a lot better. And I'm not saying Amazon would have fixed it. I just think that they need a little bit more infrastructure going in. And maybe by the next one they figure it out.

43:53but I do want them to have more resources behind them to make this game feel bigger. So yeah, I didn't think it was like the biggest doom and gloom thing. I did get scared. Like the knee jerk reaction that he's talking about of like, when you see that headline, you're like, if they fucking take away James Bond sequel and give it to some fuck ass studio, I'm going to be so mad because this game is amazing. Who's the worst. Actually, no, it's me. Actually, I'll ask you who's the worst.

44:18Who's the worst studio they could have given it? I guess studio that like, doesn't do any of this. Yeah. I'm talking like fucking King Mobile, right? Like Candy Crush, Rovio. They give it a StarCraft studio? Yeah, exactly. That's funny. I thought StarCraft too, but then I thought about it. I was like, maybe you could make a cool StarCraft. I don't know. StarCraft, James Bond? I don't know. That'd be really neat, actually. No, it wouldn't. It would be just a bunch of Bonds from different eras. It'd be a multiverse Bond. Yeah, you're like placing them stealth-wise. It'd be like Hitman Go with Bond.

44:46I don't think so. It wouldn't be that. Hitman Go is like a puzzle game. Yeah, who made Hitman Go? Square Enix. something ah yes because hitman used to be owned by square isn't that crazy that they let that go by the way which one square enix owned io man and io io went and then they said hey we're buying back hitman and then they went on a generational run that is something that we need to talk about more because like they're like the frank ocean of gaming of like somehow they left and they took the one of the biggest ips from with them and said we have a vision for this and made it into a live service thing and everyone loved it it was great and like the weird thing of yeah they let them have hitman too they just let them they're like yeah just take it we're not gonna do yeah we have no that was a perfect time because that was like right after sleeping dogs failed and they didn't know what they're doing they're making great games but then they had all this insane the deus ex stuff that that we don't talk about it was that them because they also got rid of um their west it was like them shedding all their western studios wasn't it yeah maybe because that was like no yeah idos montreal was under square and like yeah they all went to different places like like amazon and all that stuff so i think they were just in a weird place of like not knowing not wanting to deal with the western studios anymore which is i guess maybe maybe business operations were just getting weird but i remember when that happened i was like man io has like two more years you know i mean they're done there's no way they're gonna make this happen and then sure shit bro yeah james bond and they got that fantasy game allegedly so fantasy game fantasy game is it gonna be what's it gonna be like do you think i don't know but i just i after playing james bond it's like i fully before james bond i was like it's the hitman studio can they make anything other than hitman right yeah now i'm like they could do whatever the fuck they want these guys could make a madden it'll be the greatest thing ever like they can do

46:36i think i would interactive is if we were to do the ranking right now of like developers and triple a developers i interactive ss tier right now that studio is incredible they're doing great stuff they just need better publishing and i genuinely believe that i need to figure roger i need you to make a jingle right now for blessings new segment the video game studio power ranking video studio jesus christ off the rail yo what's up welcome to we have our next sandy cortez right here welcome to my video game studio power ranking brought to you by roger's really bad jingle um right now io interactive on my power ranking number 26 this was last updated i want to say like end of last year what's number one number one sandfall interactive clear obscure expedition 33 there's end of last year they won every single game of the year award make one game but they won every single game of the year you can't make one game and it'd be number one they made they won every award i own a rat to be making fucking 15 none of them were clear obscure expedition 33 you know and then they only made one of those yeah they've only made one of those so far bless that's crazy you can't put the number one it's a power ranking so it's like what does power ranking mean it's like a shifting it's like in the moment who's hot right now it's not all time okay it's who's hot in the moment right now right now but you want to know my criteria i do i have a criteria it's he has a criteria everybody relevancy so how hot are you in the game right now right and slash what have you done for me lately okay i like that critical reception aka what that metacritic do audience appeal meaning what are the streets saying about you industry impact are you pushing things forward and then finally hype for next game right how big is going to be is the pop going to be when i see your logo at a showcase those are my five criteria oh and then also blessings personal opinion it's a huge one is blessed rocking with you is part of it too um my top five right i have sandfall from soft team cherry super giant kojima productions number six is capcom capcom is probably going up now but starting off io interactive they're going up all right i'm taking them from 26 i'm putting them above sony santa monica right now above house mark wow above i just have squirt enix as a thing which is kind of cheating because they're a publisher putting you above warhorse it's above sandfall right now off the hype of that's the issue with this of like the criteria of like of like what you're doing for me right now is like any big game that comes out would be number one any good game that like you know what i mean like it's kind of broken but they made clear obscure clear isn't just a good game but like it's a generational game team of sobe would have been number one that that month that they are you saying are you saying astro is better than clear obscure at the moment it would have been you know i mean i'm just saying like game i don't know i think you gotta i think you gotta add legacy to this i think that's i think you gotta i think you gotta change some things to add some legacy there because you've gotta look at IO Interactive is like bro what a studio that has been doing this for so long sure sure okay I'm typing it down you can't just be like hey here's the new thing on the block fuck everybody else I'm just gonna say in new criteria because then you get a bracer group and things like that you know I mean we get excited oh my god they're bringing back fucking THQ Nordic oh we're so excited like you see a sandfall logo at a at a showcase right now yes of course yes we're getting up our seats the point is number one they made one video game this was in December 2025.

49:55They're going lower now. Remember when we were hot in the moment, Roger. In the moment. In December. I'm not debating it. It was in the moment. It was in the moment. It was in the moment. Think about the pop for their next game, Roger. You gotta think about it. Yeah. You see a sandfall logo. Have you thought about Blessing's opinion? Have you thought about my personal opinion? I don't think about it enough. I'm so sorry. It wasn't even my game of the year. That's the funny thing. I'm defending them so strongly. It was like number five on my list. Let's move on to story number three velen studios who's the best studio to give a starfox to apparently it's velen studios they're the ones making the new starfox game i'm pulling from a post on bs that is blue sky tim we've been passionately working on this for a while and are proud to finally share it with the world velen studios is the developer of starfox collaborating with nintendo and bringing fox mccloud and crew to switch to is truly an honor if you don't remember who velen studios is Bellman Studios are the developers behind games like Knockout City.

50:52And Midnight Murder Club. Midnight Murder Club. Mario Kart Tour. Mario Kart. The mobile one. The mobile thing. Oh, they made that one too? They might have helped with production. Wait, is it not the remote control Mario Kart game that you play in your house? Oh, maybe, maybe. Let me double check. Yeah, Mario Kart Live Home. Live Home. Home Circuit. There it is. Home Circuit, yeah. Wow. Good for them, man. random i mean not not too random because they did work on mario kart before but still random just as far as like damn y 'all made knockout city and midnight murder club and now we're back to i kind of got like a little emotional seeing that for this team because we've been following this team for a while now right like i mean especially when it comes to uh knockout city there are our podcasts being very open and honest i think during the x cast uh talking about the death of that uh talking about midnight murder club we played on stream so to see them now making a fucking starfox game like really cool so cool congratulations to that team and we're talking about it off air of like bring back Knockout City and just make it Mario Dodgeball.

51:51We got it. We're one step closer. If they're trusting this team with remaking a beloved game in one of their beloved franchises, we're getting closer to just Nintendo and Velen Studios being like, hey, what's something new we would want to make? What would you guys be interested in? A Dodgeball game. Rusty Pond in the chat says bump them up a tier. Hey, they're number one right now. They're hot right now. I mean, I have a high opinion. Knockout city top 100 game. But like I didn't, here's my thing though. Midnight murder club. I liked it fine, but it wasn't like really, it wasn't for me. Yeah.

52:28I just, I'm very happy when I see a studio that is able to kind of get out of the live service funk of it all and kind of still thrive. Right. I don't think they had to my knowledge, significant layoffs when they had any of that stuff. Like it wasn't like, Oh shit. Like we're dire need. Like they figured it out. They figured out another thing that was a moderate hit. They had a PlayStation deal right there. and then now they're over here making Nintendo stuff so hell yeah. Remember when we played Knockout City with them? They were so good. Remember when we just played Knockout City? For hours.

52:57And that's like one thing that I want to give them major props to they did the right thing that every live service game should do. They opened it up to the public. They said hey we're shutting down. Here's the server stuff. You can play this still. You can create your own custom servers. You can play this locally. This is not a dead game. You can still technically play Knockout City and figure out how to do that. So shout out to them. I've missed this map. We've got to play it. Knockout City, like, not being successful, I think was the turning point for me with this industry. Honestly, yeah. It's not a joke.

53:27I think this really, like, radicalized me as far as, like, oh, shit, all right. It should have been the biggest thing in the world. Everybody just wants to play the bullshit. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like when I hear Nas put out a new album, but, like, nobody's buying it. I don't know that. Okay, that last one was really bad. Yeah, the last Nas album. He was rapping about being a crypto king or whatever. Yeah. If this came out in the PS2 era, this would have been one of the hottest... It still maybe would have been a cousin game tier, but it would have been like, that's the game we're playing when we go to the cousin's house.